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Doctrines for the Times 



DY 

y 

REV. W. A. M'cCARTY, D. D., 

* i 

OF THE 

Alabama Conference, 

ASSISTED BY 

REV. T. R. M'cCARTY, A. M., 

I 
OF THE 

North Georgia Conference. 




ATLANTA, GA.: 

The Foote & Davies Company, Publishers. 

1895. 







COPYRIGHTED, 189S, 

By T. R. M'cCARTY. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTEB. PAGE, 

I. Presumptive Evidence 7 

II. Faith and Knowledge 24 

III. The Resurrection 31 

IV. Miracles 46 

V. Experience ........... 55 

VI. Sin 67 

VII. Sin 81 

VIII. Terminism; or, Unpardonable Sin ... 89 

IX. Conscience 103 

X. God Reconciled 110 

XI. Reconciliation of Man 125 

XII. Repentance 138 

XIII. Sanctification 148 

XIV. Justification 154 

XV. The New Birth 164 

XVI. The Dispensation of the Holy Ghost . . 177 

XVII. The Millennium 191 

XVIII. Do Sinners Get the Best of It? . . . . 211 

XIX. Man Created and Redeemed ..... 225 

Appendix — God and the Soul . . , , 241 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 

Religion should make us cheerful, yet it con- 
fers the sense of highest responsibility; there- 
fore, he who treats this subject in anywise, must 
do so in all candor and faithfulness. 

Even the historian, or poet, or writer of fic- 
tion, had better be asleep than at work, unless 
his aim be to promote human weal and the di- 
vine glory. For often a man's library com- 
panions deliver upon him as potent an influence 
as his personal associates. 

If the author had not hoped to accomplish 
some good, he would have burnt the manu- 
script before it reached the publishers; for 
in this our day, the man or woman with the 
pen, next to the woman in the nursery, or to 
the man in the pulpit, directs the issues and 
shapes the destinies of the generation. 

I am indebted to Rev. T. R. McCarty, A.M., 
of the North Georgia Conference, for valuable 
assistance in preparing the work and for seeing 
it through the press; and, by my request 
he wrote the Introduction and Chapter XIIL 
"Sanctification." 

November 13, 1895. 



INTRODUCTION. 

In this age of overproduction of books, the 
author who comes forward with a new book, 
must justify himself by clearing- new ground, 
or fertilizing and cultivating the old, so as to 
render it more productive. 

We think that the author of Doctrines for 
THETiMEshasmetbothof these requirements. 

The first five chapters furnish some new ar- 
guments, and present the proofs of the truth 
of Christianity in a manner differing somewhat 
from the usual method. And these chapters 
taken together, amount to a moral demonstra- 
tion, provided the reader admits the existence 
of a God. If he be an atheist, we recommend 
that he read the "Appendix." This was origi- 
nally designed for the first chapter, which is its 
natural position, but supposing an argument 
with the atheist uninteresting to many, the 
chapter was placed so its perusal would be op- 
tional. 

I would call attention, especially, to the light 
thrown upon the subjects, "Conscience," "God 
Reconciled," "The Millennium," and "Man 
Created and Redeemed." 

"Sanctification" occupies a novel position in 
the arrangement of chapters. 

The design of the book is to furnish exact 
statement, accurate definition, and clear proof 
of the chief doctrines of Scripture. 



DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 



PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE. 

Conceding: that there is a God, it is highly 
probable that he would reveal himself, and 
his will concerning the conduct of men, more 
clearly than appears in nature. That he has 
done so in our Scriptures, appears from many 
probabilities so strong, when taken together, 
as to exclude all reasonable doubt. But it is 
my purpose in this chapter only to include a 
few of these probabilities. 

The Christian religion is the religion of 
humanity. Indeed, it is the only religion of 
humanity. All other religions leave man in 
bondage to his own evil nature. That man's 
nature is evil and that this evil dominates 
society is evident to all who have read history. 
History is full of "woman's artifice and man's 
revenge, and endless inhumanities." No other 
religion even proposes to remedy this state by 
cleansing the fountain, the inner nature from 
which this stream of evil flows. 

At the time of Christ's appearance there 
was a general expectation, among the Jews, 
of the appearance of their Messiah. They, 
however, expected a political liberator, who 
would break the hated yoke of Roman bond- 
age. This opinion was so strong and general 
that it was held by his chosen apostles; 



8 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

persisted in by them up to the day of his 
ascension, at which time they asked: "Wilt 
thou at this time restore again the kingdom to 
Israel?" And many persisted in this opinion, 
notwithstanding his repeated declarations to 
the contrary, until after the vision of Peter 
at Joppa and the actual conversion of the 
Gentiles under the preaching of Peter and 
Paul. This expectation enabled Barchocheb, 
Simon the Gaulonite and other impostors to 
lead multitudes after them to destruction. 
Jesus of Nazareth alone announced that his 
kingdom was not of this world; that he 
came to suffer and die for sin. It shows 
sincerity — that he could make such announce- 
ments and persist in them unto the death. 

Agnosticism, calling itself the religion of 
humanity, because it puts humanity, in the 
aggregate, for God, and the hoped for survival 
of the race as the only immortality, though it 
have the sanction of some scientific and 
literary names, can never be indeed the reli- 
gion of humanity, because most men will 
require some comfort from their religion, and 
some grains of common sense in it. 

The religion of Christ is suited to all condi- 
tions and circumstances of men. Are we 
poor? Christ announces from the first that 
he was annointed to preach the gospel, or 
glad tidings, to the poor. Are we bereaved? 
Jesus shed tears at the grave of Lazarus, thus 
showing his sympathy for the bereaved. Are 
we orphans? He is the Father of the father- 



PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE. 9 

Jess. Are we in widowhood? He is the 
husband of the widow. He is more constant 
and tender in his love than a mother. He is 
an elder brother, to whom pertaineth the 
inheritance, and yet he proposes to share it 
with us, upon the lone condition that we 
accept it. Have we infirmities? He is an 
High Priest, touched with the feeling- of our 
infirmities. I am to restore my neighbor's 
things that I find, his ox or sheep if astray. 
And his excuse to the hard Pharisee for 
healing a man on the Sabbath is that, "A 
man is better than a sheep." Not a sparrow 
falls without his notice, but he says that men 
are better than many sparrows. He clothes 
the grass and paints the lily, but he is more 
considerate of men than of grass and lilies. 
There never was any religion that had so 
much humanity in it, such tenderness for men. 
But while the Bible looks with tenderness 
at the temporal interest of man, it emphasizes 
his spiritual and eternal interest. It provides 
adequately for his higher and better nature. 
It is said that the inhabitants of St. Peters- 
burg watch each other's faces, on the street, in 
winter, that they may give warning if there 
are any indications of freezing. If any one 
should behold such indications and not give 
warning, the Bible would hold him responsible 
for the damages suffered. Much more would 
it emphasize his guilt should he find his 
neighbor's soul in danger of freezing and not 
give him warning. If he should see his 



10 DOCTRINES FOE THE TIMES. 

neighbors house burning he must ring the fire 
bell. But if he should find his neighbor's soul 
in danger of burning he must ring the alarm 
bell as if an earthquake were rocking the 
belfry. Hence we read, "Thou shalt in any- 
wise rebuke thy neighbor and not suffer sin 
upon him/' Now this tender regard for 
humanity, and this regard proportioned to the 
interest involved, is just what we should 
expect in a revelation from God. It meets all 
that could be desired or conceived in that 
direction. 

We are to deny ourselves for other people, 
or for the glory of God. And we are prom- 
ised for it compensation: A hundredfold 
here, and in the world to come eternal life. 

Now of old, atheism was immoral; but when 
it had free scope, in time of the French Revo- 
lution, it showed up so ugly that decent men 
turned from it with horror. There was, there- 
fore, nothing for it but to yield the field or 
change its banner. This last it did, and we 
need not wonder, for "Satan himself is trans- 
formed into an angel of light" when it suits 
his purposes. At any rate atheism now 
professes a purer, because a more unselfish 
gospel, than is to be found in the Bible. . It 
professes to make sacrifices for others without 
hope of reward either here or hereafter; that 
is, that we are to prefer our neighbor to our- 
selves without any regard to compensation. 
No doubt but acts of benevolence are fre- 
quently done from mere sympathy, and that 



PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE. 11 

such acts are lovely to behold; but to build a 
system of morals on such passion is to make 
duty a mere question of feeling", and, indeed, 
to put it out of the reach of men of cooler tem- 
perament. But be this as it can, the idea of 
preferring" your neighbor to yourself, if not hyp- 
ocritical, must, nevertheless, be productive of 
great mischief. If it could be put into practice, 
then every one would go by his own field to 
work in his neighbor's field, and would in gen- 
eral attend to his neighbor's business, in prefer- 
ence to his own. The result would be such 
confusion as would end in utter ruin. If we 
lend to the Lord by giving to the poor; if we 
help our neighbor in those respects wherein he 
cannot help himself, from gratitude to Christ 
for what he has done for us, and because he 
will regard it as done to himself, and in gen- 
eral, love our neighbor as ourselves, we have 
gone as far as it is either safe or desirable to 
go. Atheism must steal the Christian doctrine 
here, or come short of it, or else overshoot it, 
as indicated above. The last would be most 
harmful, since it would send men to work at 
random, and make a floating waif of every 
unit in human society. That the Bible has here 
preserved the golden mean is presumptive evi- 
dence of its divine origin. 

The religion of the Bible is the only spiritual 
religion ever announced or taught to men. 
Other religions look only to the outside; this, 
at the heart or innermost nature, making the 
right condition within of indispensable impor- 



12 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

tance. To the question of the woman of Sy- 
char, at Jacob's well, Jesus answers on this 
wise : "God is a spirit, and they that worship 
him must worship him in spirit and in truth." 
John 4:24. The statements of M. Renan are, 
to some extent, so just and pertinent that we 
transcribe them. He says : "On the day when 
he pronounced these words, he was indeed the 
Son of God. He, for the first time, gave ut- 
terance to the idea upon which shall rest the 
edifice of the everlasting religion. He founded 
the pure worship of no age, of no clime, which 
shall be that of all lofty souls to the end of 
time. Not only was his religion that day the 
benign religion of humanity, but it was the ab- 
solute religion; and if other planets have inhab- 
itants endowed with reason and morality, 
their religion cannot be different from that 
which Jesus proclaimed at Jacob's well. The 
words of Jesus were a gleam in thick night; it 
has taken eighteen hundred years for the eyes 
of humanity (what do I say! for an infinitely 
small portion of humanity) to learn to abide it. 
But the gleam shall become a full day, and 
after passing through all the circles of error, 
humanity will return to these words as to the 
immortal expression of its faith and hope." 
Life of fesus, p. 215. Now, we hold that he who 
announced the universal and eternal religion 
was, by that token, not only "the Son of God 
on that day," but on all days and unto all the 
eternities. This is the true rationalism. 



PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE. 13 

The best civilization of the world is Christian 
civilization. The old civilizations were very 
inferior to that of Christendom. So is to-day 
the deistic civilization of Turkey, and the pagan 
civilization of India, China and Africa. And 
such would have been our civilization had we 
continued pagans, or had we advanced only so 
far as deism. Look at Turkey, and see what 
the deist would do with our civilization, could 
he strike down Christianity. 

Woman has always been a slave outside 
the circle moulded by Scripture. I do not 
think that warlike Sparta could be fairly ad- 
duced as an exceptional instance. For, waiv- 
ing all other reasons, the fact that children 
were punished for failing of successful theft, 
would indicate that their mothers could not 
have possessed that moral delicacy which is 
found among Christian mothers, and which 
is a necessary concomitant of a properly regu- 
lated state of freedom. But if Sparta should 
be held an exception, it would be but a soli- 
tary star shining through the rifted clouds to 
show more clearly the "upper, nether and sur- 
rounding darkness." 

But infidelity, in these days, undertakes to 
raise woman to a higher position than is as- 
signed her in Scripture and in nature. John 
Stuart Mill proposes for her the ballot, and his 
proposition was ably seconded by Herbert 
Spencer. I do not propose elaborately to 
argue the question of woman suffrage, but to 
say that it is of infidel origin and unquestion- 



14 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

ably against Scripture and against the true 
interest of society, including woman herself. 
The Bible has clearly assigned her to a subordi- 
nate condition of meet helpfulness in partner- 
ship with man, and not to a place of competi- 
tion and rivalry with him. She is subordinate 
in the family under a Divine constitution. 
This Divine law reads thus: "Wives, obey 
your husbands in all things," and this law 
reads further: "Husbands, love your wives, 
even as Christ loved the Church and gave his 
life for her." It is plain that if you give her 
the ballot you unsex her, making her the equal 
of man in all civil privileges, and thereby re- 
lease man from all obligations of being her 
defender. If she brings war by her ballot, she 
must defend the country from the consequen- 
ces of her act. 

In fact, you strike down, or at least cripple, 
the institution of marriage, which no doubt is 
the aim of infidelity, and introduce optional 
contracts, promiscuous concubinage in its 
stead. We have but two paradisaical institu- 
tions that have survived the wreck of man's 
innocency, to wit: marriage and the Sabbath; 
and the spite of infidelity seems especially 
levelled at these. If infidelity could destroy 
either of these institutions, her triumph would 
be only a question of time. If ever society 
shall burden woman with the privileges, and 
of course with the correlative duties that be- 
long peculiarly to man, she will lose all the 
charm and power of her loveliness, and win 



PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE. 15 

defeat, if not contempt, in the strife. Hus- 
band and wife each striving- to elect opposing 
candidates! Perhaps, themselves being op- 
posing candidates ! It would be as if Luna 
should leave her sphere as queen of the night, 
to drive her chariot by the side of the phaeton 
of Apollo. She would be distanced in the 
race, all her loveliness would disappear, and 
the starry sky would be in mourning for the 
loss of her brightest luminary. 

If infidelity could break down the delicate 
and beautiful hedges that Christianity has 
planted and grown around woman, it would 
soon win a practical triumph that would throw 
the world back into the old night of heathen- 
ism. Woman as she is in Christian countries 
has nearly always opposed infidelity. She is 
bound to do so by the double claims of inter- 
est and gratitude. It is the same old serpent's 
voice that led Mother Eve astray that now 
sings the siren song of making women as gods 
by unsexing them. In France and Spain it is 
said that there are five or six women to one man 
who have kept themselves in the faith. We 
suppose this is so, but it is a bad showing for 
the men. Why should women desire to be as 
bad as men? That they would be so if sub- 
mitted to the same conditions there can be no 
doubt. Let her draggle her skirts through the 
slush of political campaigns, by the side of 
men, and she will emerge from the contest 
with hands and skirts and heart as dirty as if 
she were a man. 



16 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

The true friends of woman, when the ballot 
is delivered unto her, will mourn over her ex- 
posure to ruin as the angels that kept their 
first estate might be supposed to mourn over 
those that fell. But on the other hand we con- 
fess that we have no fear for the ultimate tri- 
umph of the gospel so long as woman is in al- 
liance with Christ for the defense of purity and 
virtue. It must count for something, when we 
look at it fairly, that the Bible has lifted woman 
from the condition of slavery, and made her a 
queen in the social circle, and though a second 
estate, yet the sweetest attraction and chief 
power for good in the family. O, may not in- 
fidelity beguile her to the overthrow of mar- 
riage, and to the ruin of posterity, which has its 
destiny bound up in her purity — the purity of 
home life! 

Sinners have been captured and reformed by 
the Bible and by no other instrumentality ; by 
no other religion ; neither by science nor by 
philosophy. It is the only system that has 
ever had power to control irregular desires. 
Among ancient pagans prostitution was, some- 
times, a constituent part of religious worship. 
In the palmy days of Rome it was not disrep- 
utable for a man to lend his wife, as he would 
lend any other property, to his friend. Cato, 
the philosopher, in whom his countrymen had 
more confidence than in any man of his gener- 
ation, lent his wife to a friend in accordance 
with this custom, and when he died took her 
back to himself as if nothing had happened. 



PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE. 17 

Such moral obtusity and indelicacy would be 
impossible, and is unheard of where the gos- 
pel has been. The old man, ostracized by so- 
ciety for eloping with his neighbor's wife, was 
right in asserting: "If Christianity could be 
destroyed society would receive me back." Dr. 
Martineau is vindicated by the facts when he 
says : "In times and places of religious declen- 
sion, the Bible may not have had its legitimate 
influence; but to test the power of religion, we 
must limit ourselves to cases where the power 
is not effete. In the Puritan families of the 
seventeenth century, in the present Catholic 
families of Ireland, throughout the Society of 
Friends, and in the Wesleyan classes, it can 
hardly be denied that the control of irregular 
desires has been attained with an exceptional 
ease and completeness." 1 

The inhabitants of the Sandwich Islands, 
within the memory of men now living, were 
cannibals, sunk in the lowest depths of moral 
degradation. Now, by the preaching of Wes- 
leyan missionaries they are said to be as moral 
as average Europeans — the best people of the 
world. But granting that this may be some- 
what overstated — and possibly it is — yet there 
is, no doubt, a marvelous change for the better, 
such as was never accomplished by any other 
system. We have seen communities steeped 
in drunkenness, abounding in breaches of the 
peace and in all uncleanliness, brought to so- 
briety, peaceableness and purity, simply by the 

1 "Questions of Belief," p 180. 



18 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

preaching- of the gospel, and the instrumen- 
talities it supplies. A man once said to his 
pastor, "I would join your church were it not 
so corrupt." He replied, 'The church may 
not be entirely pure; indeed, it must be ad- 
mitted that it never was. The church that 
crossed the flood, in the ark, had a bad 
member in it, and in the apostolic circle was 
Judas. So it has been and perhaps will be. 
But we would be willing to risk all on the fact 
that the church here is better than the world." 
He rejoined, "You would lose." Let us see. 
"Do you know any drunkard in the church 
here?" He said, "No." "Any profane swear- 
er?" "No." "Any thief?" "No." Then he 
pressed the question, "Do you know any 
such in the world hereabout?" "Plenty of 
them," was his answer. Then he said, "I will 
put you on the stand and make you a witness 
to yourself." But the reader may say, "The 
church in my neighborhood has almost every 
grade and shade of sinners in it." It is sad to 
confess that it is sometimes so; in these times 
of religious declension, frequently so. Yet in 
almost all the churches that we have seen you 
could find a dozen or more that could not be 
matched in the world, of that community, for 
integrity and purity. So that after all abate- 
ments it may still be held that the Christian 
religion has reformatory power, and that it is 
the only system that has such power. Must 
it not, therefore, if merely a human power, be 
an extraordinary human power? But some 



PRESUiVPriVE EVIDENCE. 19 

have said that they have known a few drunk- 
ards reformed by temperance societies. If so, 
it must be remembered that the temperance 
society is a product of Christianity. No moral, 
no benevolent society ever had existence 
where the Bible had not been. 

It is no more than could have been reason- 
ably expected that the Christian religion 
should have been abused for unholy purposes. 
And it is not to be denied that there have been 
a few noble characters outside the range of 
Christianity. Yet the religion of the Bible 
has produced the highest style of men known 
to history. 

The founder of Christianity not only "spake 
as man never spake," but he also lived as no 
other man ever lived. If this be so — and no 
fair-minded man of our day will question it — 
must he not have been more than human? 
We repeat, he outlived all other men. "He 
went about doing good." He gave all that 
was in him to the service of men; a faultless 
life and an ignominious death he gave for men. 
There is no man in all the ages that can reach 
near his stature. Was he who was full orbed 
and peerless in moral grandeur a mere man? 

But the declared purpose of the gospel is to 
multiply copies of this man; and though it has 
not done this so fully as might be desired, yet 
it has come nigher the high standard than any 
other system. 

There is Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, 
who gave up the best advantages and the best 



20 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

hopes his nation could afford, that he might 
accept and engage in abundant labors for the 
"despised sect," in the face of stripes, bonds 
and imprisonments, even to martyrdom, that 
he might glorify God and do good to men.. 
And there is John Howard, called, by way of 
eminence, "the philanthropist," who went from 
prison to prison, that he might ameliorate the 
condition of poor, degraded and suffering off- 
cast men. He gave himself so utterly to this 
self-denying work, that when in sight of the 
pyramids, he would not allow himself time to 
visit them. And there is John Fletcher, of 
Madely, whose purity, self-abnegation and de- 
votion to God and humanity are wonderful. 
Mr. Hill offered him the living of Dunham, 
with good salary and little work. He refused 
because the salary was too large and the work 
too little. He chose Madely when the salary 
was only half as large and the work double. It 
is not wonderful that when Voltaire was chal- 
lenged to show a man who could rival Jesus, 
that he should point to John Fletcher, 1 of 
Madely, and not to any one moulded by merely 
deistic or atheistic influences. And there is 
John Wesley, a character not so rounded and 
complete, perhaps, as John Fletcher's ,at least, 
not so smooth and gentle, and yet more abun- 
dant in self-denial and labors. He abandoned 
ease and reputation that he might preach the 
gospel to the poor; he wrote, or abridged, about 
two hundred volumes, that he might cheapea 

1 "Wesleyan Memorial Volume," p. 427. 



PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE. 21 

and place within reach of the poor the best 
literature ; for fifty-three years, he preached 
more than an average of two sermons a day, 
besides attending" classes and doing many other 
works. And after reserving a bare support for 
himself, he gave all that he realized by his im- 
mense labors to the poor and needy. So that 
by design he died not worth ten pounds beyond 
his funeral expenses. We might go on with 
this list of great and good men, moulded by 
the gospel. But we pause and ask : Has de- 
ism or atheism produced one such man ? Who 
is he ? Where did he live ? What did he do ? 
Where are the men, and where the monuments 
of their goodness ? 

The Christian religion is the simplest, 
sweetest, sublimest idea ever submitted to the 
contemplation of men. Logicians hold ^that 
the truth, certainty and glory of logic are 
found in the fact that it all can be reduced to 
the axiomatic principle contained in the dic- 
tum of Aristotle. Mathematicians tell us that 
the certainty and glory of that branch of logic 
appears in the fact that it may all be reduced 
to a few axiomatic principles, which, being 
admitted, as they must, all the rest follows. 
So the truth, beauty and glory of the Chris- 
tian religion follow from the fact that it is all 
contained in one little monosyllabic Saxon 
word, Love. The simplest, sweetest word that 
ever trembled on the stammering lips of child- 
hood ; and yet the sublimest word thai ever 
swelled the hearts or swept the harps of angelic 



22 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

choirs ; yea, the grandest word that ever stirred 
the heart or proceeded from the mouth of God. 
Paul declares that "Love is the fulfilling" of the 
law." Rom. 13:10. He also declares that we 
may "have faith," "give alms," "prophesy," 
"possess knowledge," and "yield ourselves to 
martyrdom;" yet without love we are nothing. 
I. Cor. 13. 

A scribe asked Jesus : "Which is the great 
commandment in the law ?" Jesus said unto 
him : "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and 
with all thy mind. This is the first and great 
commandment. And the second is like unto 
it : Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. 
On these two commandments hang all the law 
and the prophets." Matt. 22: 36-40. Love 
makes us Christians ; and in the absence of it, 
no matter what we may have, we are but 
"sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." 

This is the acorn that enfolds the tree, roots, 
trunk, branches, leaves, fruit; the grain of 
corn that has in it stalk, blades, and full ear. 
Love is the concentrated essence of all. 
Gather all perfumes into one garden, and love, 
the concentrated essence of the Christian re- 
ligion, will burden the air with sweeter odor. 
Collect all the light of the material universe 
into one star, how it would dazzle the eyes of 
all beholders ! Yet love, holding in itself the 
concentrated light of the moral universe, would 
outshine a whole heaven of such stars. Sup- 
pose all the sweetness of sugar and honey, in- 



PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE 23 

deed, of all saccharine matter, concentrated in 
one grain ! How sweet that grain would be ! 
Who can estimate ? imagine ? So all the 
sweetness of the moral and spiritual universe 
is concentrated in that one word, Love. And 
that is the Christian religion. It bears on its 
face the image and superscription of God. 
Whenever announced it becomes henceforth 
inconceivable that there could be any other re- 
ligion. If an angel should deny this faith, he 
would by that token show himself fallen. It 
is, indeed, the universal and the eternal religion. 
On this high ground we rest, satisfied that 
here is The Truth, since it is inconceivable that 
there should be anywhere any other true re- 
ligion. 



24 DOCTRINES for the times. 



II. 

FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE. 

In searching- for truth we must divest our 
minds of prejudice; must not let sophistry build 
the fence that encloses the field; must not rest 
in plausible platitudes; must, indeed, in all 
fairness, "prove all things," and "hold fast 
that which is good." 

Religious truth must be verified by such 
methods as are employed in the investigation 
of other truth. A random discussion of reli- 
gion will conduct us just where a random 
discussion of any other question would con- 
duct us — nowhere. Socrates was the peer 
of any man in ancient or modern times. 
Neither Plato, nor Aristotle, nor Lord Bacon, 
nor Sir Isaac Newton, nor modern scientist 
nor philosopher is his superior in native ability 
or acquired power of intellect. And yet his 
reasonings about immortality, as reported by 
Plato, in the "Phaedo," seems as the idle prattle 
of childhood. And we must confess that the 
battle of the giants in "Questions of Belief" 
seems but little better. Such men as Prof. 
Harrison, Huxley, the Duke of Argyle, Mar- 
tineau, and Mallock write to little purpose, it 
being- mostly at random. 

A man may build his hopes on mere nega- 
tions; but these will not satisfy. He may say, 



FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE. 25 

as Shelley did of his maternal grandfather, 
"All his hope was in annihilation." Yet it is 
a hope based on no proof; indeed against all 
analogy; and that could have comfort in it 
only for bad people. A man could believe it 
only when his desire should dominate his 
reason. Reason raises a presumption of 
immortality; 'Very considerable degree of 
probability/' l And a good man would accept 
it, influenced by his desire and the preponder- 
ance of evidence. But the bad man whose 
interest makes him wish that he shall not be 
required to give an account of himself to a 
personal God, would find it easy to avoid such 
proofs. If we were left to the discoveries of 
reason "the battle would hang" almost in 
"even scale," inclining no doubt in favor of 
future responsibility, and therefore in favor of 
virtue, but not sufficiently so for full triumph. 
It is well for us that we have the gospel, with 
its all sufficiency of proofs. So that we may 
say, "Life and immortality are brought to 
light by the gospel." The Christian religion 
is capable of such proofs as not only raise a. 
presumption of its truth, but also such as bring 
it within the category of Positive Truth. If 
this be so it will be found that Christianity 
stands above all other truth, and Christian 
people, living or dying, are assured that it 
shall be better with them than with others; 
the title deeds to immortal blessedness are 
signed, sealed and delivered into their hands; 

1 ♦'Butler's Analogy," chap. 1; 



26 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

and a crown of glory forever rests on the 
head of Virtue; and the man who weds this 
lovely maiden finds her dowered with richer 
heritage than "Mammon's gift to a single 
heir." 

Infidels are accustomed to glorify knowl- 
edge while they depreciate faith, but Chris- 
tianity assigns to each its due place and 
importance. It glorifies faith, but only because 
the facts in the premises warrant it. In all 
the departments of human life faith has a 
much wider range than knowledge. So that 
for the most part we find ourselves under the 
necessity of walking by faith because of the 
scantness of our knowledge. When we come 
to accurate statement we find that we know 
but little. "The conceit of knowledge without 
the reality' ' is a very common infirmity. All 
men not accustomed to weigh and measure 
their thoughts and utterances, fall into this 
mischievous "conceit." All that we gather 
from the past and all that we look to in the 
future must be by faith. Indeed all the pres- 
ent, outside the narrow horizon of experience 
and observation, comes to us through the 
avenue of faith. The man who ignores faith 
is like the savage who supposes that the places 
where the earth and sky appear to come to- 
gether are the outer boundaries of the world. 
For instance, you call that woman "mother;" 
she is to you the sweetest, best woman in the 
world, and you have no more doubt that she is 
your mother than you have of your own exist- 



FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE. 27 

ence, and yet your certainty is of faith; you have 
been told that that kindest, loveliest woman is 
your mother, and you believe it. It is of faith 
and not of knowledge. You have been trading 
and corresponding with a firm in New York, 
but you have never seen the men, you have 
never been to that city, and you do not know 
that there is such a city or firm; you believe it, 
and your faith rises into certainty. Still, it is 
faith, and the certainty grows out of the evi- 
dence that cannot be disputed. So it is with 
most men in reference to their acceptance of 
scientific truth. The scientific man makes his 
experiments and witnesses phenomena; but 
most men do not make scientific experiments 
nor witness phenomena. "They walk by faith, 
and not by sight." They are "told," and there- 
fore believe. Suppose the unscientific man 
should say, "I cannot believe that oxygen and 
hydrogen unite to form water, for scientific 
men tell me that oxygen is a supporter of com- 
bustion, and that hydrogen gas sometimes is 
so inflammable as to kindle spontaneously, and 
yet the two united, in the form of water, extin- 
guish fire." The scientist expects the unscien- 
tific man to believe, because he is "told." 

Courts of judicature depend for the settle- 
ment of controversies on human testimony. 
The most precious things of this world depend 
largely upon human testimony. A man's rep- 
utation, his property, even his life, is held or 
lost by human testimony. It is by faith in hu- 
man testimony that all the issues of this life are 



28 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES-. 

determined. Take away faith in human testi- 
mony, and all law, as well as gospel, would go 
with it. Society could not protect a good citi- 
zen, nor punish a criminal. In fact, govern- 
ment, in all its departments, would be annihi- 
lated, and the human unit would be turned 
loose to achieve what it could in the midst of 
all other conflicting units. Faith in human tes- 
timony is the cord that holds society together, 
and that keeps it from falling into the abyss. 
Take away faith, and we would find the bed of 
human knowledge so short that a man could 
not stretch himself on it, and the covering too 
narrow to keep him from freezing in cold 
weather. 

Faith is based on evidence. If a man be- 
lieves more than the evidence warrants, he is 
credulous and superstitious. Superstition be- 
gins where faith overlaps or stands above the 
evidence. Superstition, however, may apply 
to overbelief in anything, as well as in religion. 
The man who believes against all experience 
that happiness may be found in gold, or in 
what may be bought with gold, and barters 
health or integrity for it, is as superstitious as 
the man who killed his child in the belief that 
God would raise it from the dead. On the 
other hand, when faith lags behind the evi- 
dence, we get skepticism. And it may be as 
bad, sometimes worse, to believe too little. 
While the credulous man may overdo good 
things, and do many bad things, the skeptic 
will underdo good things, or, more likely, not 



FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE. 29 

do them at all, and may do just as many bad 
things. The credulous man may stir up strife, 
but the skeptic would turn humanity into a 
Dead Sea of nonaction, and thus abandon so- 
ciety to rottenness from bottom to top If a 
man believes the truth, the truth may some- 
times not be hindered greatly by the belief of 
some things that are mere rubbish, or even by 
some things that may seem harmful. Calvinism 
is an ugly looking doctrine, but somehow, sin- 
ners are converted and believers are held to 
obedience, not by Calvinism, but in spite of it. 
Many Calvinists are as orderly in their lives as 
other believers, because they believe in truth 
enough to save them, to wit : in the eternal 
ruin of the sinner, and in the necessity of re- 
pentance and faith in Christ to save a sinner. 
The Universalist, to a superficial thinker, may 
seem to have a better creed, but in taking away 
the "exceeding sinfulness of sin," in removing 
the great penalty of eternal death, he has taken 
out the only great motive that can move a 
sinner. True, love is the greatest of all mo- 
tives, but the "carnal mind, which is enmity 
against God," cannot take in this motive nor 
even appreciate it. Hence, Universalism never 
did or could lead a man to repentance. The 
only reasonable and wholesome way is to be- 
lieve just as much as the evidence warrants, 
and no more. And this is just what the Chris- 
tian religion demands. 

We claim that the Christian religion is based 
on positive as well as presumptive proofs. It 



30 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

is not some fictitious Utopia, nowhere existing 
but in the brain of the idealist, but solid ground 
on which a man may stand and feel that he 
has firm footing. It rests, indeed, on the only 
two sources of information to be found in any 
department, to wit: faith and knowledge. 
Faith standing on evidence, and knowledge 
gathered from the fields of experience and ob- 
servation. On these two rocky bases, the 
Christian religion rests. 



THE RESURRECTION. 31 



III. 

THE RESURRECTION. 

Before proceeding- to the proofs of the res- 
urrection some preliminary observations may 
be demanded. 

i. The appearances of Jesus amount to a 
perfect number. Seven was regarded by the 
Jews as a perfect number ; but the absolutely 
perfect number was and is ten. Hence we have 
ten persons composing- a passover family ; ten 
bridesmaids for a wedding- ; and in the New 
Testament, ten virgins. Ten constitutes the 
highest number that men can count. Col. M., 
when a candidate for the legislature, was ac- 
cused of not being able to count an hundred. 
His friend said : "Let me hear you count that 
I may reply to your traducers." The Colonel 
marked ten on the ground ten times. But said 
his friend, "Let me hear you count straig-ht 
forward." The Colonel replied : "I cannot 
do that." And that is really so with us all. 
When we get to ten we have to go back and 
begin again, and so we do at twenty — two tens 
— and at thirty — three tens — and so on. So that 
ten is as many as we can count. Indeed, 
strictly speaking, we can count but nine. Now, 
as in the Lord's prayer we have seven petitions 
and also seven beatitudes, and an eig-hth in each 
to assure us of a perfect number, so in the res- 



82 



DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 



urrection we have ten appearances, and to 
make it sure that we have the requisite number 
for perfection, we have eleven, to wit : He ap- 
peared (i) to Mary Magdalene; (2) to the 
other women; (3) to the disciples in the way to 
Emmaus ; (4) to Peter ; (5) to the ten in the 
city Sunday night, Thomas being absent; (6) 
to the disciples, in the city, next Sunday; (7) to 
the disciples fishing on the shore of the Sea of 
Galilee ; (8) to the five hundred ; (9) to 
James; (10) to the disciples, leading them out 
to Bethany, from whence he ascended; (11) 
and last of all, to Paul, as to one born out of 
due season. We are persuaded that there is 
significancy in the number of the appearances ; 
that it is intended to indicate that it was to 
give them time and full opportunity to test the 
reality of the appearances, and to remove all 
doubt of the fact to which they were to bear 
witness — his resurrection. 

2. The empty sepulcher is suggestive. The 
enemies of Jesus had his body in custody, and 
yet they failed to account for its disappearance. 
The modern infidel seems rather ashamed of 
the story of his ancient brethren, that the dis- 
ciples stole the body when the soldiers were 
asleep. Some now suggest that he might not 
have been dead when placed in the tomb. 
The soldiers seemed satisfied that he was 
dead, when they did not break his legs, as they 
did the other two, and when his enemies sealed 
the tomb they must have been satisfied that 
he was dead. But the idea that a man who 



THE RESURRECTION. 



had been up all night before, who had fainted 
under the weight of the cross, and had been cru- 
cified, and had the spear thrust into his side, and 
had staid in the tomb three days, should get up 
and break the seal, and roll away the great 
stone, and escape the notice of sixty Roman 
soldiers, and get away unnoticed, is simply pre- 
posterous. The empty sepulcher is a fact that 
presses hard upon the enemies of Jesus. 

3. The fact that the resurrection was pub- 
lished publicly in the city of Jerusalem, fifty 
days after his alleged resurrection, and again 
and again, there and everywhere, without con- 
tradiction, is wonderful, if we are to suppose it 
untrue. They arrested the apostles, and if 
there was any sufficient reason for rejecting 
their testimony, why did they not confront 
them with it ? This would have been so much 
better than the mere exercise of arbitrary 
power. 

4. We have the testimony of the women, as 
recorded by the four evangelists. This is tes- 
timony at second-hand, but we believe no one 
has questioned the fact that such testimony, as 
recorded, was given in to the evangelists by 
the women. M. Renan goes so far as to say 
that the resurrection rests on the testimony of 
Mary Magdalene. But there are discrepancies 
in the testimony of the women? Of course 
there are. If there were not, it would suggest 
collusion. You could hardly get a statement 
of a street fight, by three or four reputable 
witnesses, on oath, without considerable varia- 



34 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

tions, and some of them difficult to reconcile. 
The judge would charge the jury to reconcile 
the statements, if possible. But if there were 
some statements that the jury could not recon- 
cile, what would be the conclusion ? That there 
was no fight at all, though all testified to that 
fact, because there were statements of particu- 
lars hard to reconcile ? Notwithstanding the 
proverbial uncertainty of the verdicts of petit 
juries, yet we venture to say that there never 
was a jury impaneled that would have ren- 
dered such a verdict. And yet that is just what 
infidelity does in reference to the testimony of 
the women . That is, infidelity assumes that 
the variableness of the testimony of the women, 
in regard to some particulars, makes it im- 
probable that there should have been a resur- 
rection, although they all agree as to this main 
fact. The women were excited and fright- 
ened: Mark 16:8. After all, we think the diffi- 
culties in the testimony of the women have 
been exaggerated. For instance, Matt. 28:5, 
we read that there was one angel. John 
says "two," 20:12. . But they are describing 
different appearances. Take also the state- 
ments as to the time they came to the sepul- 
cher. Matthew reports : "As it began to dawn 
towards the first day of the week :" 28:1. 
Luke says : "Upon the first of the week, very 
early in the morning." No difficulty here, 
since the Jewish day began at sunrise: but John 
says, 20:1, "When it was yet dark." No one 
knows the exact spot of the tomb, but it was 



THE RESURRECTION. 35 

in the garden where he was crucified : John 
19:41. That is, on the west side of the moun- 
tain, so that it would be more or less dark, by 
the shadow of the mountain, even at sunrise. 
So, we see that the greatest of the difficulties 
are easily reconciled. But it really matters 
but little whether we are able to clear up all 
the difficulties, since it seems that the apostles 
themselves could not do so. Hence, the state- 
ments of the women seemed to them as "idle 
tales, and they believed them not :" Luke 24:1 1. 
Strange as it is, infidelity has all along tried to 
hold the apostles responsible for the testimony 
of the women. But the strangest thing of all 
is, that Christian apologists have not shown 
that there is no reason for this. As well hold 
the writer of the Book of Job responsible for 
the sentiments of Job's friends; or as well hold 
the writers of the New Testament responsible 
for what the scribes and Pharisees uttered. 
The writers are only responsible for the facts 
that they record, to wit: that scribes and 
Pharisees did make such utterances. So they 
are simply responsible that the women bore 
such testimonv as they record. The testimony 
of the women is not put forward as inspired testi- 
mony. It is hziman testimony, and is to betaken 
with such allowance as should be made for the 
imperfection of human testimony. Let it there- 
fore be borne in mind that the testimony of 
the women is not the testimony for which in- 
spiration is in anywise responsible, except for 
the fact that the women did say what is re- 



36 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

corded. Indeed, the apostles say expressly 
that 'They believed them not." The apostles,, 
instead of endorsing this testimony, were over- 
skeptical about it. Hence, Christ upbraids them 
with their unbelief: Luke 24:25. It is entitled 
to such credit as is ordinarily given to human 
testimony, especially since their testimony in 
the main fact accorded with what the "prophets 
had spoken." We have, then, the testimony of 
the women; it may seem hard to reconcile in 
every particular, but that is just what we 
should expect, under the circumstances. It 
being merely human testimony, we must take 
it with all due allowance for human imperfec- 
tion. 

But the testimony of the apostles stands al- 
together on a different footing, their inspiration 
avouches their truthfulness. And we venture 
to say that there are no inconsistencies to be 
found in their testimony. 

We now propose to introduce four of the 
apostles, who have written down their testi- 
mony. Two or three witnesses were as many 
as were required in any case under Jewish law, 
and this number is enough to satisfy any rea- 
sonable demand. We will therefore introduce 
to the reader the written testimony of Mat- 
thew, John, Peter and Paul. 

MATTHEW. 

We believe there has never been any doubt 
that the early church possessed a Gospel written 
by Matthew. But of late years, one man, at: 



THE RESURRECTION. 37 

least, has supposed 1 that as the early church 
had the Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew, and all 
the copies now extant are in Greek, the old 
Gospel may in some way have slipped out, and 
a new one, by some unknown author, foisted 
upon the church, in its stead. This objection 
shows how little the enemies of this Gospel can 
say against its genuineness. For, as Hebrew 
had ceased to be a spoken language, and all 
the other Gospels were in Greek, very soon the 
copies would be taken in Greek, the classic 
language of the world. But we have positive 
testimony that this Gospel was "translated by 
many," so early as the middle of the second 
century. This testimony is borne by "Papias, 
Bishop of Hierapolis, a man of weight;" 2 so 
that all shadow of doubt is removed as to the 
genuineness of Matthew's Gospel. 

john's gospel. 

This Gospel has been assailed with consider- 
able fierceness, yet it has been vindicated so 
as to put its genuineness beyond reasonable 
doubt. The internal evidence itself seems suffi- 
cient to satisfy any unprejudiced mind. Evi- 
dently the First Epistle of John, and the Gospel 
that bears his name, are by the same author, 
yet we believe no one has ever questioned the 
genuineness of this epistle. John records more 
than the other evangelists the spoken words of 
the Lord, and his words, so recorded, are the 
sweetest words ever spoken, the most wonder- 

1 W. R. Gregg, in "Creed of Christendom.' 

2 M Renan, "Life of Jesus," pp. 19-20. 



38 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

ful utterances of all the ages. M. Renan him- 
self confesses that Jesus was the Son of God 
when he held that conversation with the wo- 
man at Jacob's well. His Gospel is just what 
might be expected from the loving-hearted 
John. The Gospel of John is a more elegant 
composition than the Revelations. Just what 
we should expect, since the Revelations was 
written on the Island of Patmos, and the Gos- 
pel about twenty years afterwards; meanwhile 
John had been at Ephesus, in contact with 
some of the most elegant Grecians of the age. 
But we have an abundance, we may say a su- 
perabundance, of positive testimony as to the 
genuineness of John's Gospel. Ignatius, within 
twenty years of the death of John, quotes his 
gospel. 1 His Gospel, about fifty years after 
his death, is quoted by Justin Martyr. Celsus, 
who wrote about seventy years after the death 
of John, quotes his Gospel, but raises no ques- 
tion as to its genuineness, which he assuredly 
would have done had he supposed it could 
have been assailed on plausible grounds. Irae- 
neus, about one hundred years after the death 
of John, informs us that John wrote his Gospel 
at Ephesus. Several heretics quote John's Gos- 
pel, and one of them — Heracleon — sixty or sev- 
enty years after his death, wrote a commentary 
on his Gospel. Origen, in his commentary on 
Matthew's Gospel, says of our four Gospels : 
"They alone are uncontradicted in the church 



1 For these facts, in another form, see Quarterly Review, M. E. Church, 

South, July, 1880. 



THE RESURRECTION. 39 

of God under the heavens." We believe there is 
no writing - , in all the ages, so fully vindicated 
as to its genuineness as the Gospel of John. 
There is indeed but one ground for rejecting 
the Gospels as to their genuineness, and that 
is conjecture that, though they were written by 
their reputed authors, they do not give us the 
history of Christ as the so-called rationalists 
imagine that they ought; mostly because they 
contain a record of miracles. Renan will give 
us the reason for rejecting them. He says : 
"Let the Gospels be in part legendary, that is 
evident since they are full of miracles and the 
supernatural." 1 This is the higher criticism. 
The Gospels have much more proof of their 
genuineness than any writing of Cicero or 
Plato, or, indeed, of any ancient writing what- 
ever, but this must be set aside because some 
men, who think that wisdom was born with 
them, imagine that miracles are impossible to 
God. 

We will now introduce Matthew as a wit- 
ness. He says : "Then the eleven disciples 
went away into Galilee, into a mountain where 
Jesus had appointed them. And when they 
saw him, they worshiped him : but some 
doubted. And Jesus came and spake unto 
them, saying, All power is given unto me in 
heaven and in earth." 

"Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, bap- 
tizing them in the name of the Father, and of 
the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them 

1 "Life of Jesus," p. 1$. 



40 DOCTRINE FOR THE TIMES. 

to observe all things whatsoever I have com- 
manded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even 
unto the end of the world. Amen:" Matt. 
28:16-20. 

We now introduce John. He says, after the 
report that he gives of the statement of Mary 
Magdalene: "Then the same day at evening, 
being the first day of the week, when the doors 
were shut where the disciples were assembled 
for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in 
the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto 
you. And when he had so said, he showed unto 
them his hands and his side. Then were the 
disciples glad, when they saw the Lord. Then 
said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto 
you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send 
I you. And when he had said this, he breathed 
on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the 
Holy Ghost: whose soever sins ye remit, they 
are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins 
ye retain, they are retained." 

"But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didy- 
mus, was not with them when Jesus came. 
The other disciples therefore said unto him, 
We have seen the Lord. But he said unto 
them, Except I shall see in his hands the print 
of the nails, and put my finger into the print of 
the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I 
will not believe." 

"And after eight days again his disciples 
were within, and Thomas with them: then came 
Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the 
midst, and said, Peace be unto you. Then saith 



THE RESURRECTION. 41 

he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and 
behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, 
and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, 
but believing. And Thomas answered and 
said unto him, My Lord and my God. Jesus 
saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast 
seen me, thou has believed: blessed are they 
that have not seen, and yet have believed:" 
John 20:19-29. 

Again, John says: " After these things 
Jesus showed himself again to the disciples at 
the Sea of Tiberias; and on this wise showed 
he himself. There were together Simon Peter, 
and Thomas, called Didymus, and Nathanael 
of Cana in Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, 
and two other of his disciples. Simon Peter 
saith unto them, I go a fishing. They say unto 
him, We also go with thee. They went forth, 
and entered into a ship immediately; and that 
night they caught nothing. But when the 
morning was now come, Jesus stood on the 
shore: but the disciples knew not that it was 
Jesus. Then Jesus saith unto them, Children, 
have ye any meat ? They answered him, No. 
And he said unto them, Cast the net on the 
right side of the ship, and ye shall find. They 
cast therefore, and now they were not able to 
draw it for the multitude of fishes. Therefore 
that disciple whom Jesus loved saith unto 
Peter, It is the Lord. Now, when Simon 
Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his 
fisher's coat unto him, (for he was naked,) and 
did cast himself into the sea. And the other 



42 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

disciples came in a little ship; (for they were 
not far from land, but as it were two hundred 
cubits,) dragging - the net with fishes. As soon 
then as they were come to land, they saw a fire 
of coals there, and fish laid thereon, and 
bread. Jesus saith unto them, Bring of the fish 
which ye have now caught. Simon Peter 
went up, and drew the net to land full of great 
fishes, a hundred and fifty and three: and for 
all there were so many, yet was not the net 
broken. Jesus saith unto them, Come and 
dine. And none of the disciples durst ask him, 
Who art thou ? knowing that it was the Lord. 
Jesus then cometh, and taketh bread, and giv- 
eth them, and fish likewise. This is now the 
third time that Jesus showed himself to his 
disciples, after that he was risen from the dead." 
"So when they had dined, Jesus saith to 
Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou 
me more than these ? He saith unto him, 
Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He 
saith unto him, Feed my lambs. He saith to 
him again the second time, Simon, son of 
Jonas, lovest thou me ? He saith unto him, 
Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He 
saith unto him, Feed my sheep. He saith unto 
him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest 
thou me ? Peter was grieved because he said 
unto him the third time, Lovest thou me ? 
And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest 
all things; thou knowest that I love thee. 
Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep. Verily, 
verily, I say unto thee, when thou wast 



THE RESURRECTION. 43 

young", thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst 
whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be 
old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and 
another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither 
thou wouldest not. This spake he, signifying 
by what death he should glorify God. And 
when he had spoken this, he saith unto him, 
Follow me. Then Peter, turning about, seeth 
the disciple whom Jesus loved following; 
which also leaned on his breast at supper, 
and said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth 
thee ? Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, 
and what shall this man do ? Jesus saith unto 
him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is 
that to thee ? follow thou me:" John 21 : 1-22. 

We will now introduce Simon Peter. He 
says: "Blessed be the God and Father of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, which according- unto his 
abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto 
a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus 
Christ from the dead:" I. Peter 1:3. 

Lastly, we introduce Paul, the genuineness 
of whose first letter to the Corinthians has 
never been called in question. His testimony 
stands apart and independently of all the 
others, and is enoug-h to satisfy any unpreju- 
diced and intelligent mind when taken in con- 
nection with the other witnesses. He was one 
of the bitterest enemies to the Christian reli- 
gion. And he understood that in joining him- 
self to this "despised sect" he was giving up 
as bright hopes of worldly honor as any 
young Jew of his day could have had. There 



44 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

is no man in history more worthy of credit 
than Paul. It puzzles a Jew, and indeed, all 
infidels to this day, to account for Paul's be- 
coming" a Christian. There is nothing- that 
can explain the fact except the admission of 
its truth. A Jewish rabbi who has become a 
Christian, says: "A Jew will turn pale if you 
mention Paul to him." 1 And a noted English 
infidel is reported to have said that if Paul 
should bear testimony to any miracle that he 
himself witnessed, he would believe him. 2 
Let us then hear Paul's testimony. He says: 
"Last of all he was seen of me also, as of one 
born out of due time:" I. Cor. 15: 8. 

This is the whole of the direct apostolic 
testimony that has been recorded and that has 
come down to us. And now we ask: Where is 
the conflict that has had the changes rung on 
it, by infidels, all along the ages? It does not 
appear. It cannot be found. It cannot be 
accounted for except upon the hypothesis of 
inspiration or of collusion. There is no re- 
spectable infidel of our day that would charge 
the apostles with corrupt intention. They say: 
"Good men, but may have been deceived." 
But the appearances that they record forbid 
the idea of deception. Paul puts it squarely 
and truly : "He arose from the dead or else 
we are false witnesses." The testimony is am- 
ple: four witnesses who saw and heard what 
they record. The quality of the testimony 
could not be better, for the witnesses have not 

1 Yeager. 2 Collins. 



THE RESURRECTION. 45 

been and cannot be impeached. We credit 
the facts stated in Caesar's "Commentaries'* 
simply upon his statement, but here are four 
witnesses of better reputation than Julius 
Caesar. We credit Josephus upon his state- 
ment of what he witnessed, and here are four 
witnesses of as good reputation, for truth and 
veracity, as Josephus. It is said that when 
some one disputed the statement of the Duke 
of Wellington about something that occurred 
at Waterloo, the Duke simply replied: "But 
I was there." Here are four witnesses that 
"were there." Take it all and all, there is no 
event in history so well attested as the resur- 
rection of Jesus the Christ from the dead. If 
we reject it, it cannot be for want of testimony. 
It may be rejected, perhaps, on the higher 
criticism of Mr. Hume, to wit : "That no tes- 
timony is sufficient to establish a miracle." 
But this is to make history by conjecture rather 
than from testimony. But we will consider 
this more fully in the next chapter. 



46 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 



IV. 

MIRACLES. 

M. Renan tells us that "J esus not only be- 
lieved in them [miracles] but had not the 
least idea of a natural order governed by law." 1 
It seems to me very strange that Christ and 
his followers should put miracles on their 
proper basis, if he was so ignorant. The word 
is power, force. And he says to the Sadduces, 
" Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, neither 
the power of God." He knew and assumed 
that it was a question of power. M. Renan 
shows great presumption in this charge. Christ 
understood the question at issue much better 
than the men who are against him. If men or 
demons resist God, he holds in his hands 
thunders enough to sweep them all into the 
abyss. If the continuity of nature should in- 
tervene, he has power to dissolve the atom- 
built universe, and throw it back into chaos 
or into nothingness. Christianity assumes the 
fixedness and continuity of nature. A miracle 
would be a meaningless thing on any other 
hypothesis. The question at issue is simply 
this: Has he or can he break this continuity ? 
Or, is he impotent ? Or, has he imparted to 
his creature, nature, so much power as to ren- 

1 "Life of Jesus," p. 230. 



MIRACLES. 47 

der himself a bankrupt ? I have known some 
foolish old men to convey all they possessed 
to their children, so that in old age they were 
paupers, begging at the doors of ungrateful 
children. Infidelity charges God with such 
folly, in imparting all his power to nature. The 
infidel who denies the power of God chains him 
to the all-conquering chariot wheels of matter, 
and thus drags him a captive to his own crea- 
tures. On the other hand, Christ turns on 
these infidels, and says to them, through their 
ancient brethren, the Sadducees : "Ye do err, 
not knowing the Scriptures, neither the power 
of God." It is a question of power. 

He who makes a clock, if he have but human 
skill, can stop it or turn it back, as may suit 
his purposes. So, he who made the lunar or 
sidereal chronometers, can move them up or 
turn them backwards, as may best subserve 
his purposes. I do not run into superstition 
when I believe God could lay his hand on sun 
and moon, and cause them to pause in their 
courses. If necessary to carry out his plans, 
he could lock up all the machinery of nature, 
or burn down the physical universe. If he be 
God, he could do it. It is merely a question 
of power. 

If God have power, there is no difficulty 
about miracles. If God be in motion, it is per- 
fectly natural for wonders to cluster along the 
way of his movement. If you were to tell me 
that an iron spike grew to be a great tree, I 
should not believe it, for it is a well-ascertained 



48 DOCTKINES FOR THE TIMES. 

fact that iron has in it no vital force. But you 
may tell me that acorns grow to the height of 
three hundred feet, with trunks large enough 
to drive a wagon and team in the hollow; and 
I could believe it, for acorns are known to have 
vital force in them. If you were to tell me 
that acorns assumed the power of locomotion, 
after developing into trees, and were hitched 
to wagons, hauling corn, etc., I should dis- 
credit it, for acorns have not the power of loco- 
motion. But if you were to tell me that horses 
were used for such purposes, I could believe 
it, for horses have the power of locomotion. 
But if you were to tell me that horses meas- 
ured the distance to the sun, and weighed the 
heavenly bodies in balances, I should say I 
cannot believe in horses of such exceptional 
capacity ; but if you were to tell me that men 
did these things, I could believe it, for men 
have done many things as wonderful. But if 
you were to tell me that a man raised the dead, 
I should say that is beyond all human ca- 
pacity. Men cannot create life — cannot break 
the law and continuity of nature. But if you 
were to tell me that God raised the dead, I 
should say he has manifested power as great 
as that in the creation of the universe, and if 
he should choose to raise the dead, he has 
power also to perform the work. Whether he 
has done so, in any assumed instance, will de- 
pend on the testimony. 

The objection of the scientific skeptic to mir- 
acles, is that they break the order and conti- 



MIRACLES. 49 

nuity of nature. Now, whether he admits the 
resurrection of Christ or not, he is shut up to 
the necessity of admitting- that the order and 
continuity of nature has been broken. He 
must admit it, or stultify himself; ignore facts 
held by all scientific skeptics, as will soon ap- 
pear. 

The existence of life on our planet necessa- 
rily implies a miracle. Dr. Tyndall has proved, 
to the satisfaction of all men, that the sperm 
of bacteria cannot live ordinarily, for any 
length of time, in a boiling fluid; but if a few 
of the germs might shelter themselves, so as 
to live with the temperature at 21 2° Fahrenheit, 
yet no germ of life can continue for any length 
of time, when the temperature is raised to 300 
Fahrenheit. Such are the facts ascertained by 
Dr. Tyndall's experiments. Now, all skeptical 
scientists hold, with others, that for long ag-es 
all the rocks and metals, and indeed all the 
atoms of our globe, existed in a fluid state, 
from the intensity of the heat. So that if it 
were possible for life to exist, in any form, so 
long in such heat, the laws by which life was 
then conditioned must have been different from 
what they are now. In which case the fixed- 
ness and continuity of nature was broken, and 
the miracle appears. The survival of the three 
Hebrews — Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego 
— in the furnace heated seven times above the 
ordinary temperature that was destructive of 
life, would be so small as hardly to be counted 



50 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

miraculous by the side of this. Indeed, there 
is not a miracle recorded in Scripture but would 
"pale its ineffectual fires" by the side of this 
stupendous miracle, even as the stars are 
hidden by greater light of the risen sun. Life 
existing for countless ages in a sea of melted 
matter as wide as the earth, and reaching to 
the depths of its innermost center ! 

But let it be conceded, as it must be, that 
life was neither born in nor survived these 
primeval fires, then it must be conceded that 
life came in after the subsidence of the heat. 
But the coming in of life, no matter at what 
point, would break the old order or continuity 
of nature. It would be a manifest revolution, 
a new order. It would be not the raising of 
the dead, but surely as wonderful, the creation 
of life. Before that time there may have been 
hills and valleys, rugged, nude and waste; now 
there is spread over the rugged waste a carpet 
of green, checkered with bloomy, wavy life. 
Anon the various animals, including man, ap- 
pear and mingle in the scene. Nobody can 
doubt that there is a revolution, a new order. 
Mr. Thompson supposes that life may have 
come to our planet in fragments of matter, 
falling as meteors from other systems. But 
these "other systems" have been submitted to 
the like primeval fires, so that the hypothesis 
puts the miracle a little further back in the or- 
der of time, but cannot, by any means, elimi- 
nate it. But does not Dr. Tyndall say : 
"Matter has in it the promise and potency of 



MIRACLES. 51 

all terrestrial life"? If he means to assume 
that the germs of life survived the primeval 
heat, then he contradicts, by a mere dictum, 
his own published experiments. But if he 
means, as I suppose he does, that life is de- 
veloped from matter by molecular motion, 
then he makes matter or motion, or the two 
combined, the creator of life, which would 
overtop all the miracles of Scripture. 1 The 
fact is there can be no doubt about the miracle. 
Intelligent and fair-minded people of all par- 
ties must now say: The miracle stands con- 
fessed. The only question in the controversy, 
is as to whether the miracle was wrought by 
dead matter — proved to be dead when it came 
out of the primeval fires. No doubt but there 
are skeptical scientists still superstitious 
enough to believe that matter was the creator 
of life. But what causes us to wonder is that 
such people declare that they "cannot upon 
any testimony believe in miracles." 

Now, having gotten this miracle, we propose 
to advance so far as to show that it becomes 
the dominating power of the material world. 
Gravity is a well-ascertained law of matter. 
It covers every particle of matter and extends 
to all the planets and suns within the reach of 
our telescopes. By it bodies are held together 
and abide in their places on the surface of the 

1 It is a little amusing to see how Dr. Tyndall, in his answer to his Belfast 
critics, plays the role of juggler. In order to make good his assertion that there was 
in matter "the promise and potency of all terrestrial life," he goes to the oceaa 
for vapor, floats it to the top of the Alps to get it condensed into crystal and then 
revaporiaes it and floats it again, and finally slips in an acorn and gets an oak. 



52 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

earth. If you plant a rock or piece of iron in 
the earth, they will be held there by this force. 
But if you plant an acorn it will come to the 
surface and rise ten, twenty, maybe a hundred 
feet above the surface; that is, it will overcome 
the law of gravity, and push itself upward by a 
new and stronger force. What is it makes 
the difference? Life — the power of life. This 
new power of life dominates the old power of 
dead matter. 

But man can outdo the life that abides in 
vegetation. I say beforehand that I am go- 
ing to pick up and cast that pebble into the 
lake. I do so and by it send a wave from 
shore to shore, thereby changing many drops 
of water with their gravity. Man digs a canal 
or clears a forest from sea to sea and sends 
out colonies to inhabit the wilderness, by all of 
which the currents of air and the rain clouds 
are changed, so that the earth is different to 
what it was. Surely God can do as much as 
acorns or men. If he be the Omnipotent he 
can do much more. If it be asked, therefore, 
how can God interfere with the laws of matter 
and not cause confusion and ruin, I answer 
by asking, how do men and acorns interfere 
and leave the world unharmed? Indeed, all 
the movements of life overbear the law and 
order of old dead matter and cause the world 
to be different. Why then may we not take 
the fetters off the feet of God and allow him 
to move and act in the midst of the universe 



MIRACLES. 53 

which he has created, without hindrance or 
harm? Did the coming in of life do harm to 
nature? It revolutionized the old dead nature, 
overriding it; but then the miracle became 
the beauty and glory of the world. So the 
miraculous in the Christian religion is the 
source of its peculiar beauty and unparalleled 
glory. To be ashamed of the miracle in the 
Christian religion is to be ashamed of the 
beauty and glory of Christ and of God. 

There is, indeed, such opulence of proof for 
the resurrection of Christ, as to capture the in- 
tellect and compel belief. There can be but 
two reasons why men can disbelieve it. Either 
they are so sinful as to feel that it would be to 
their interest that Christianity should be un- 
true; that, indeed, if it be true, it would have 
been better for them never to have been born — 
In which case their opposition might be so 
strong as to make them moon-eyed stumblers at 
noonday — or else they have been looking at 
one side of the question until they have forgot- 
ten that questions have two sides. They have 
gotten the idea of physical law in their minds j 
and they have not capacity to lift up their eyes 
to the higher laws of life. Nevertheless, "Life 
and immortality are brought to light by the 
gospel." 

We have not only proved by competent tes- 
timony the fact of the resurrection, but have 
also proved that life on our planet necessarily 
had a miraculous origin, and became the cause 



54 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

of continuous wonderful phenomena. Hence- 
forth we should hear no more of that "lame 
and impotent" objection that "no testimony 
is sufficient to prove a miracle." 



HXPEKIENCE. 55 



V. 

EXPERIENCE. 

A gentleman of fine intellect and of consid- 
erable attainments used to say: 'The Chris- 
tian religion begs the question for a moment, 
but only for a moment, when it says: 'Believe, 
and you shall know.' ' But as a matter of 
fact, it does not beg the question at all. It 
gives a sufficiency of evidence; such as ex- 
cludes all reasonable doubt; such as would 
win a verdict for any cause in a court of justice; 
such as a wayfaring man, though a fool, can- 
not mistake. All this it does. And then it 
says: "Since you have such evidence as war- 
rants and commands your faith, believe and 
you shall know." 

That Christianity as a theory has won- 
drous beauty in it has been confessed by many 
infidels; but they object that it is vague, shad- 
owy, and without positive proof. On the con- 
trary, I hold that it may be known with as 
much certainty as any other fact; that it may, 
indeed, be translated into experience. It is 
not like Crusoe's boat, dug out of good timber 
and well proportioned, but too heavy to be 
launched. It challenges our acceptance on the 
ground that it may be tested by conscious ex- 
periences; that it may become a matter of 



50 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

knowledge. Christ says: "Come unto me all 
ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will 
give you rest." Here the promise is that all 
who come to Christ shall find such a blessed 
change of state as may be recognized in expe- 
rience. It also declares that we may realize, 
when it says: 'Taste and see that the Lord 
[the Christ] is good." Christ moreover de- 
clares: "If any man will do [willeth to do] 
his will he shall know of the doctrine, whether 
it be of God." And even Herbert Spencer ad- 
mits, for all, this consciousness, for he says: 
"We are equally prevented from ridding our- 
selves of the consciousness of absolute exist- 
ence." Paul, when summoned before the au- 
thorities to answer for his faith, trusts for the 
vindication of himself mainly to the relation of 
his experience. He says, moreover: "I know 
whom I have believed." Again he says: "The 
Spirit beareth witness with our spirit." He 
appeals to the only witness by which we can 
know anything — consciousness. In a loose 
way we speak of eye and ear witnesses; but 
really, eyes and ears have no such capacity. 
Mr. Lewes, who has given us the latest con- 
clusions of science on this subject, and who 
cannot be suspected of being overfriendly to 
Christianity, says: "All our knowledge springs 
from, and is limited by feeling." 1 (Italics his.) 
There can be no difference of opinion here; for 
even the external universe is simply to us what 
we feel it to be. Hence, he says again: "It is 

1 "Questions of Belief," p. 236. 



EXPERIENCE. 57 

only in the relation of external reals to inter- 
nal feelings that objects exist for us." 1 It all 
amounts to the old adage: "Feeling" is know- 
ing." Or, in other words, we can have no knowl- 
edge but by the "greeting of the spirit," or 
rather, all our knowledge is born of conscious- 
ness. Mr. Lewes further says: "The Not Self 
is emphatically present in every consciousness 
of self." 2 The etymology of the word would 
so indicate: con, together, with; and sew, I 
know; i. *., I know something in conjunction 
with something else. In every act of conscious- 
ness there must be discrimination between self 
and not self. I am myself and not another. 
Comte, as if embarrassed by the fact of con- 
sciousness, says: "A cat is not likely to mis- 
take herself for another cat." That may be so 
and yet have no relevancy to the point under 
discussion. A cat will mistake her image in a 
looking-glass for another cat. And a child 
may make a like mistake. But a child will 
soon learn to count and discriminate, which a 
cat will never do. A father held his child, five 
months old, before a looking-glass. She mis- 
took her image for another child; but behold- 
ing the image of her father, she looked rapidly 
back to him, and then to the image in the glass 
with evident tokens of surprise in her counte- 
nance. She was raising the question, "Are 
there two alike ?' ' This is more than a cat could 
do, and yet more than this is necessary in every 

1 "Questions of Belief ," p. 235. 

2 Ibid, p. 238. 



58 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

act of consciousness, and, by consequence, in 
every act of witnessing. A cat can hear, and 
see, and smell — has the sense organs — better 
than a man; but cannot be a witness for lack 
of the "greeting spirit;" for consciousness must 
discriminate between self and not self; In the 
act of bearing testimony, say in case of theft, 
there must be such discrimination as can say: 
"I saw A take B's property, not C's, and more- 
over, there must be the concept property. H ere 
are three acts of discrimination. All these men- 
tal acts are involved in witnessing. If we ad- 
mit that a cat might have some sort of con- 
sciousness of self, yet it is clear that she could 
not form the concept involved and perform 
the other acts of discrimination; and hence a 
cat could not be a witness in the premises. In 
reference to the resurrection of Christ, the wit- 
ness must say it was not some other, any other, 
but himself; and I saw him once or twice or 
thrice or more times. All this a cat never could 
do, and never did. But if eyes and ears could 
bear witness, she would be competent. It is 
perfectly clear that we must have the "greeting 
of the spirit," or consciousness, if we get testi- 
mony. 

It may be objected that though it be true 
that, in the last analysis, consciousness is the 
only witness, yet in the consciousness of God 
there is no intervention, or going between of 
the senses, as there is in most acts of con- 
sciousness. But I should say this rather indi- 
cates greater certainty, for the intervening 



EXPERIENCE. 59 

senses are sometimes causes of mistakes. If 
we see or hear imperfectly, there may be mis- 
takes, for the spirit will "greet" the report of 
the senses. A person seemed fo be dying- of 
nervous excitement, produced by the appear- 
ance of a monstrous beast which was following 
him continually. His physician requested him 
to point out the monster. He said : "It is 
standing now at that window/' The physician 
took his stand between the patient and the 
window, and said, "Do you see it now ?" "Yes: 
it is on the other side of you." He then di- 
rected the patient to close one eye, and asked 
again, "Do you see it now ?" "Yes." He then 
directed him to close that eye, and open the 
other; and when he did so, he said : "Now it 
is gone." It was a defect in one eye that 
caused the mistake. The mirage is a notable 
instance wherein people are deceived by the 
sense of vision. We all, no doubt, can recall 
many instances wherein we have been deceived 
by the senses. If then, spirit can greet spirit 
without the intervention of the senses, that will 
eliminate one possible cause of mistake. Peo- 
ple at a distance may communicate through 
the medium of telegraphic wires; but if they 
could be brought face to face, there would be 
less liability to mistakes, because one imper- 
fect medium would be excluded. So it is if 
spirit can greet spirit without the medium of 
the senses. 

But can spirit greet spirit without such inter- 
vention ? We are conscious of the fact, and 



60 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

as consciousness is the only witness, the only- 
witness that we have of the external world; the 
only witness that we have of our own exist- 
ence; the only witness that we have of any- 
thing; we must trust it or abandon ourselves 
to universal skepticism. The world is to us 
only what we feel it to be; we are to ourselves 
only what we feel ourselves to be. Shall we 
trust our consciousness, and say the world and 
we exist, with such properties and attributes as 
are testified to in consciousness, or shall we 
reject the witness? If we discredit this wit- 
ness, there is no other; we have closed the only 
avenue of knowledge; rather, we have dried 
up the waters at the fountain, and though, like 
the brutish beast, we have five inlets and out- 
lets, yet there could be no knowledge, because 
objects and senses cannot manufacture the ar- 
ticle, else the "beast that wants discourse or 
reason" would manifest it. The senses carry 
the messages back to the "greeting" spirit, and 
then bring them forward to expression. And 
in the case we are considering, there is the 
greeting of the Spirit of God to our spirits, 
without the intervention of the senses. Why 
may it not be so ? Here is an analogous case: 
You submit to me a mathematical problem. I 
know neither the method of working it, nor 
the answer. I revolve it in mind until I am 
able to work it and get a true answer. I am 
conscious now of true work and correct an- 
swer. I can prove it by another mental pro- 
cess and another act of consciousness. Must 



EXPERIENCE. 6l 

I now put all this work on slate or paper, so 
that I can see it, in order to be assured ? No: 
I know it just as well by a mere mental pro- 
cess. The Great Spirit greets our spirits di- 
rectly, without the intervention of the senses. 
We know it, not by the testimony of the senses, 
for we know nothing in that way, but we know 
it as we know everything else, by the testi- 
mony of consciousness. We verify this testi- 
mony of consciousness by other and collateral 
facts of consciousness. There comes in with it 
the consciousness of love, and peace, and joy. 
And then to seal all these acts of consciousness, 
and to accredit them to the man himself and 
to the world, there is the manifestation of a 
better life, by the recognition of the claims of 
God as a father and of man as a brother. Is 
there any reason to distrust this act of con- 
sciousness, thus certified by other criteria of 
consciousness, and further avouched by the 
appearance — phenomena — of a better life ? No 
more than there is to doubt that there are stars 
above, or trees around, or earth beneath our 
feet. All knowledge, in the last analysis, must 
be submitted to and verified by the same wit- 
ness; that is, by consciousness. Take this from 
us, and we cannot be Christians ; take it from 
us, and we may be stones, or stars, or brutish 
beasts; we cannot tell, for we cannot recognize 
ourselves as men. By the same token, there- 
fore, that we recognize ourselves to be men, 
do we recognize ourselves to be Christians — 
as being reconciled to God through the Son of 



62 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

his love. Yes, a man may be sure of this, 
though he be not able to hold the links in the 
chain of argument. It is said a learned infidel 
once encountered a rustic, unlettered Christian. 
The infidel gave him many reasons why 
there could be no God and no religion. The 
Christian was unable to cope with him in the 
field of argument. But after it was all over 
the rustic told his experience. It was simply 
this — and it was enough to satisfy the require- 
ments of science and common sense — "I know 
whom I have believed" — the language and 
experience of Paul. The idealist might puzzle 
many persons by telling them that the world 
exists only in idea; that it is evolved from 
their own minds and that the various sensa- 
tions that seem to be produced by external 
objects are only qualities generated by the 
mind itself; still people are right to trust their 
consciousness, though they may never have 
heard it called by that name. On the other 
hand materialists might puzzle some people by 
telling them that it is their bodily organization 
that thinks, yet plain people are in the right 
to trust their consciousness, which declares 
them to be more than mere organized clods of 
dirt. So Christian people are in the right 
when they say they know God as a pardoning 
God and a Saviour. Just as surely as the 
great poet knew that he saw with the mind's 
eye what was never seen by bodily eyes, do 
the pure in heart know that they "see God" 
with the spiritual eye. If the mental eye can 



EXPERIENCE. 63 

behold moral beauty, why may not the spiritual 
eye behold the beauty of the Christ when he 
becomes to man a Saviour? If a man can by 
tasting tell that honey is sweet, so may a man 
with his spiritual palate taste and with spiritual 
eyes see that the Lord is good; for all is certi- 
fied by one and the same witness conscious- 
ness. Look at the parable of the good Samar- 
itan. The natural eye takes in the words and 
sentences; the mental eye takes in their sig- 
nification. But if there be a man whose moral 
perception does not see more than is in words 
and in intellectual manifestation; if he does 
not see a moral and spiritual beauty that never 
was in literal word or on printed page, he has 
more brute than angel in his nature. 

But may not consciousness deceive us? Sir 
Wm. Hamilton has amply vindicated the 
veracity of consciousness. Nothing is so cer- 
tain; indeed, nothing else can be certain. As 
nothing can be felt, so nothing can be known 
outside of consciousness. Yet if conscious- 
ness be in an abnormal state, it may deceive 
us. Dr. Blair, the poet, was deceived as to 
his personality. He imagined himself a grain 
of barley, and would not risk himself in the 
barnyard for fear of being picked up by the 
fowls. I once knew a man who took himself 
for the Christ and offered, with apparent sin- 
cerity, to save men, if they would come unto 
him. Either the senses or the consciousness 
may be in an abnormal state. If so, the only 
appeal is to them in a normal state. As con- 



64 DOCTKINES FOK THE TIMES. 

sciousness is the only reservoir and fountain of 
knowledge, you must get the stream from this 
source. As it is the only place where the 
commodity is manufactured and kept in store, 
you must of necessity buy in this market. 
Philip is an autocrat, and hence the only ap- 
peal from Philip drunk, is to Philip sober. 

The Christian religion, in its essence, is 
love, and where there is love there is con- 
sciousness of it. A child is just as sure that 
it loves its mother as of its existence. When 
you can reason him out of the one you can 
reason him out of the other. There is like ex- 
perience in the Christian religion. We know 
that we love God and our neighbor. In view 
of all the facts in the premises, it would seem 
that religious knowledge is the most trust- 
worthy of all our knowledge. Away with all 
the nonsense that men have spoken and writ- 
ten about the shadowy nature of the evidences 
of Christianity. Paul understood this, since, 
when arraigned before the courts, for his own 
defense and for the defense of the faith, he 
relied mainly on his own experience. We 
need no other witnesses than those who have 
testified to the resurrection of Christ, and 
those who, like Paul, have testified from their 
own experience and say, "We have tested and 
we know." And all are left without excuse, 
because all are invited to make the same test, 
and assured that on compliance with the con- 
ditions they also shall know. 



EXPERIENCE. 65 

The following instances are selected from 
many others that might be adduced to show 
that there are such phenomena in the religion 
of the Christ that ought to satisfy any sane 
and honest man: 

Once there were two men who were liv- 
ing in deadly enmity towards each other. 
By the preaching of the gospel each of 
them became convinced of sin and came to 
the same altar as penitent seekers of religion . 
One of them was converted, or born again, or 
whatever you may be pleased to call the 
change that came over him; he arose and 
looked around; almost instantly the other 
arose and looked about him, this change hav- 
ing come to him also. They were looking for 
each other; they saw, and rushed into each 
other's arms. In a meeting- that we once held, 
there were some small boys, who had never 
heard that religion was love, or if they had, 
could not have entered into collusion to de- 
ceive people; yet when they found Christ in 
the pardon of sin, they embraced each other 
with evident tokens of love and joy. There 
was a little boy, who went one night to the 
altar for penitential exercises. The next morn- 
ing he said to his father: "Something strange 
has happened to me; there is a boy across the 
street who hates me and I have been hating- 
him, but I do not hate him now, I love him." 
And such is the experience of all the millions 
who have been born of God. Is not that 



66 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

which has such transforming- power the true 
religion? If this be delusion it is better than 
any reality. That child thinks and acts as if 
he loved his mother. If you think he is de- 
luded would it be a friendly act to try to dis- 
sipate such delusion^ 



sin. 67 



VI. 

SIN. 



Sin is any transgression of the law; trans, 
beyond, and gradi to pass. But then we may 
sin just as grievously by not coming up to the 
mark, or by omission. In a work of some 
note a noble lady is made to say: "If I sinned, 
I hope it was by omission." l This represents 
the opinion of the author, who had fallen into 
the common error that sins of omission are 
smaller than sins of commission. Thou shalt 
love God and thy neighbor, constitutes, accord- 
ing to Christ, the sum of the whole moral law. 
Not to do so would be a sin of omission. And 
this sin of omission is the darnel that sows the 
whole field. 

The question that De Foe puts into the 
mouth of Friday, and did not answer because 
he was not so good a theologian as he thought 
himself to be, has been thought unanswer- 
able: "Why does not God kill the Devil." 

The question is really double and must be 
divided if we would approximate a satisfactory 
answer, i. Why did God submit man to trial 
or temptation? 2. If it was best that he should 
be tried, why allow the Devil, a foreign hostile 
power, to solicit him to wrongdoing? 

1 "Eadymion," by Lord Beaconsfield. 



68 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

i. Then, if man had been sheltered from all 
temptation, his virtue, if he could have had any 
at all, would have been a mere hothouse plant. 
If boys could be kept indoors, and kept from 
the exposure, they would grow up as timid 
and weakly as girls. So if man could have 
been secured against all temptation there would 
have been no robustness in his virtue. It was 
on this principle that St. James exhorts, "Count 
it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; 
knowing this, that the trying of your faith 
worketh patience. [No trial, no patience.] 
But let patience have her perfect work, that 
ye may be perfect and entire, wanting noth- 
ing :" James i: 2-4. So we see trial is 
necessary to two things — to the virtue of pa- 
tience, and to perfection. It was best, indeed, 
unavoidable, if man was to be man that he 
should be tried. If God had made him as he 
made the stars, to move merely by mechanical 
force, there was nothing to prevent it; but if 
man had been so made he would have been no 
more capable of virtue than are the stars. 
When he bestowed upon him the grand power 
of volition, good and evil must be submitted 
to his choice. To ask, therefore, why he was 
tried is equivalent to asking why he was made 
a man, rather than a star. 

Since it was necessary that he should be 
tried, the question arises, how? As a matter 
of fact, he was tested in at least six ways : (1) 
As God made him he must render to him wor- 
ship and obedience; (2) As God had given him 



sin. 69 

a wife he must demean himself well in the re- 
lation of husband ; (3) As God had blessed and 
consecrated the Sabbath for him, he must rest 
and hallow that day; (4) He must dress and 
keep the garden by divine order; (5) He must 
demean himself wisely and faithfully in the 
exercise of his dominion over the lower 
animals; (6) He must abstain from the fruit of 
one tree. If man had failed in the performance 
of any one of these five positive duties, he 
would have fallen. But he chose to fall 
by violating the prohibition not to eat of 
the one tree. Taking the history literally, 
as we do, we can see nothing to inspire 
the mirth of the skeptic. There are fruits now 
that may be partaken of to our undoing — the 
fruit of the vine, or of the corn, or of the poppy. 
If the tree were intoxicating we can see the 
reason for the prohibition. And Adam seems 
to have had his mind confused by the eating so 
that he imagines that he can hide from God 
amid the trees of the garden. But suppose the 
prohibition was one for which Adam could see 
no reason. Suppose it was simply to cultivate 
in him the habit of obedience to authority. 
This is the most important habit that needs 
to be formed and cultivated in the minds of 
young and old even down to this day. 

God does not demand obedience merely that 
he may play the role of despot. He does not 
take a diamond to the anvil from curiosity to 
see if it can be broken with a sledge hammer. 
But he requires obedience because it is neces- 



70 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

sary to the harmony of the moral universe. It 
is self-will, and not obedience, when we can 
see the reason. It is this self-will that produces 
all the lawlessness of mobs. God gives the law 
in his wisdom. Man disobeys in the fancy 
that he is wiser than God. God may very well 
have made that prohibition merely to impress 
the man with the necessity of obedience to law. 

Children that are governed merely by 
reason and persuasion, usually turn out badly. 
Such government failed notably with the 
sons of Eli. And in the bounds of our ob- 
servation, we have known many such in- 
stances of failure. Mr. L. and his wife were 
reputed to be the best people in their town, and 
they had the worst boy. They coaxed and 
reasoned with Tom, but restrained him not by 
authority. And at the last, Tom showed them 
that he had no respect for their wishes; showed, 
indeed, that he had no respect for their per- 
sons. And so it turns out in most like in- 
stances. That boy or girl who has been suf- 
fered to go at his own pleasure, no matter how 
kind his mother may be to him, will, in the end, 
trample upon her heart without compunction, 
and brush her tears aside as the common dew 
in his pathway. 

The first lesson to be taught a child is obe- 
dience to parental authority. In default of 
this, we have lawlessness in the family; and a 
number of such families will make lawless 
communities. When God prohibited man the 
fruit of the tree, he was teaching him the first 



BIN. 71 

lesson that is needful for humanity to learn — 
obedience. To hold that this was a bad lesson 
to be taught him, is not only to demur to the 
divine wisdom in the premises, but it is also to 
eschew all human wisdom gained from obser- 
vation. 

Since it seems unavoidable, even necessary, 
that man should be tempted, we come to the 
second question: 

2. Why did God suffer the Devil, the 
head and front of a foreign hostile power, 
to solicit him to wrongdoing? Angels fell, so 
far as we know, without any foreign adverse 
influence, and so might man have fallen. With 
the six duties that we have enumerated, and 
maybe others that we know not of, he would 
have been liable to fall while his probation 
lasted. And if Adam had stood, each one of 
his posterity must have been tested in the same 
way, and one fall would have been forever 
fatal. We are inclined to think, therefore, that 
we are in better condition as fallen in Adam 
and redeemed in Christ, than we should have 
been had Adam stood. For had Adam or any 
one of his posterity fallen at his own insti- 
gation, there could have been no redemp- 
tion, since the Scripture assures us there could 
be no sacrifice for willful sin. It seems, 
therefore, that it was better for him to risk a 
fall at the instigation of the Devil than on his 
own motion. 

Furthermore, there are intimations in Scrip- 
ture that the well-being of the whole moral uni- 



72 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

verse is dependent on the mediation of Jesus 
Christ. Christ was creator, insomuch that 
"without him nothing" was made." Without 
his creative work God would have existed in 
solitary glory through all the eternities. At 
any rate: "All things were created by him 
and for him . . . and by him all things 
consist." Col. 1:16-17. "By him all things 
consist" — con and sistere, to stand together. 
All things stand together by or in Christ. In 
him is the stability of the moral universe. New 
help to stand comes to the whole moral uni- 
verse by Christ. Without the atonement of 
Christ, mercy could have had no place in the di- 
vine administration. Mercy was born on Gol- 
gotha, born by death and bought by the blood 
of the Son of God. If mercy be so costly for 
human sinners led into sin by the guile and de- 
ception of a foreign hostile power, surely no 
other district in the divine dominions would 
hazard the experiment of sinning against God. 
They could not do so in the hope that God 
would repeat the sacrificial death of his Son. 
On the map of the universe was the Devil's 
hell, whose beacon light may have shone to the 
outer boundaries of creation. If so, it was 
not enough to frighten man from becoming a 
partner with him in his sin, and of risking a 
partnership with him in the hell prepared for 
him and his angels. But when man's Calvary 
is seen voiced with the death agonies of the 
Son of God and streaming with blood-bought 
mercy, surely, if God can secure the welfare 



sin. 78 

and stability of the moral universe, it will be 
accomplished by this tragedy. For in him all 
things consist — stand together. If the forego- 
ing be duly considered, it may seem for good 
reason that God did not "kill the devil." 

By the fall, man came into bondage ; be- 
came carnal, sold under sin. Before the fall, 
he could will and do good by virtue of the 
grace of his creation. But by sin he came into 
bondage to the evil of his own nature. And 
the sin that enslaves him brings him also into 
outer bondage. 

There are said to be only three forms of gov- 
ernment possible for nations: (i) Kingly, or 
autocratic government; (2) Aristocratic, or 
class government; (3) Democratic, or the 
government of the whole people. Proudhon's 
idea of anarchy, or no government, could only 
be realized were the whole people wise and 
good. If everybody were wise and good, 
there would be no need for laws to guard one 
against the encroachments of another. The 
law is not necessary in such case. But any 
government suggests the want of confidence; 
is, indeed, evidence that man has little confi- 
dence in man. All sound-minded people be- 
lieve that men need restraint. How much 
restraint may be needed, will depend on the 
condition of the people to be governed. An- 
archy being out of the question, the best pos- 
sible government would be democracy, or in a 
large country, representative democracy — a 
republic. But this best form of government 



74 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

would fail if a majority of the people were want- 
ing- in intelligence and virtue. Montesque 
gives, with other conditions that would cause 
a republican government to fail: (i) Plutoc- 
racy, or where some persons accumulate great 
wealth, so as to raise them financially to great 
and exceptional influence among their fellow- 
citizens; (2) The want of an efficient consti- 
tution, that may interpose effectually to check, 
by veto, the unwise exercise of legislature. As 
a matter of fact, republican government has 
hitherto failed. And it may be justly feared 
that no people have yet attained to such estate 
that the majority are wise and good enough 
to hold the reins of government. But how- 
ever this may be, it is very evident that most 
of the nations of the earth have not yet arrived 
at the condition where it would be desirable 
for the masses to govern. 

There is no recourse, then, but to fall back 
to the next best form of government, which is 
aristocracy. Aristocracy has been tried, and 
failed. Class government has in it this feature 
of infelicity, that men, however wise, are not, 
in general, good enough to do for others as 
well as they would do for themselves. The 
government of Egypt was certainly not im- 
proved by an oligarchy of wise and learned 
men. And, though the British House of Lords 
is no doubt composed of the ablest rulers 
known to history, yet it is more and more 
distrusted, and is evidently destined to fall. 



BIN. 75 

Then there is but one other form of govern- 
ment possible for many people — that is, au- 
tocracy, or the one-man power. If this one 
man were always wise and good, it would be 
the best possible government. But, as a mat- 
ter of history, he hasnot been so. And yet, if 
neither democratic nor aristocratic govern- 
ment is strong enough to govern, it will be 
better to get back to autocracy, because this 
government, any government is better than 
anarchy. When the people cannot govern 
themselves, or when no milder government 
can properly restrain, either Caesar or Napo- 
leon must take the reins. The best govern- 
ment is the government that governs best. 
Contrariwise, the sciolist would have only 
one form of government, and stretch or shorten 
all conditions of society to fit his precon- 
ceived notions. 

Whoever can accept the foregoing para- 
graph will not be stumbled by the declaration 
now to be annunciated; that, abstractly con- 
sidered, slavery is the worst possible govern- 
ment, and yet, under some conditions imposed 
by sin, it may be even the best possible gov- 
ernment. Aristotle holds that a child in non- 
age had better be under the control of his father. 
It is very bad that he is not able to direct him- 
self; but such being the fact, he must be di- 
rected by another. He holds further that a race 
of people incapable of self-control had better 
be under slavery until they attain their major- 
ity, so as to be able to take control of them- 



76 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

selves. God allowed the Hebrews to take 
slaves from among the heathen, not to punish 
them, but to put them every way in better con- 
dition for this world and the next. And to 
show his good disposition towards them, he 
instructed Abraham to incorporate them with 
his covenant people by circumcision. Being 
thus circumstanced, they were in greatly im- 
proved condition for this world and the next. 
It was good for them to be put under such 
powerful restraints; but the fact that they could 
be governed by no milder expedient is very 
sad. Yet it was so by their own fault. 

Moreover, slavery was one of God's peni- 
tentiary institutions. A man had as well take 
issue with his State for establishing a peniten- 
tiary for bad men, as to take issue with God 
for establishing slavery for the heathen. The 
sciolist, following the infidel wisdom of J. J. 
Rousseau, says all men are good except when 
made bad by society. But God in his wisdom 
says a sick man is sick, and a bad man is bad, 
and proceeds, to deal with them as such. The 
fact is, there are many evils in this world sad 
to contemplate simply because man is a 
sinner. 

Of what has been said under this head, this 
is the sum: All governments are instituted 
because man needs restraint. The more he 
needs restraint, the stronger the government 
needed for his control until we come to slavery, 
the strongest of all, and, therefore, the most op- 
pressive. But yet we must get back to it 



sin. 77 

when man can be controlled by no milder gov- 
ernment. So that all governments, especially 
slavery, is an exponent of man's fall and of 
what he has lost by sin. Man being "sold 
under sin" comes into all bondage, inner and 
outer. 

Divorce is another exponent of man's loss 
by sin. It is a tree that bears bitter fruit, 
because it has its roots in sin. And yet, with 
all its evil, it is intended as a divine institution 
to prevent greater evil. At first there was no 
divorce law in the divine government, because 
if man would do right there would be no need 
of such law. But for the hardness of the 
Jewish heart, Moses gave divorce a wide appli- 
cation. Divorce, bad as it was, became a 
necessity in view of the condition of society. 
Now, under the greater light and helpfulness 
of the new dispensation, the law comes back 
nearer to its original demands, so that divorce 
is allowed for only one cause. But that this 
cause should exist shows us, in part, how we 
have lost by the fall. 

As the infidel sciolist insists that there ought 
to be no slavery under any circumstances, he 
ought to hold that there should be no divorce 
for any cause. But in his inconsistency he 
would make it wider than ever, even at the 
option of either party, greatly to the damage 
of the purity of home life. Indeed, the law of 
divorce is a sad evidence of the trouble that 
has come into the family through sin. And 
even when it does not come to this length, yet, 



78 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

in many instances, how much trouble and 
misery come out of marriage. Many a do- 
mestic circle is now but a Babel of confusion 
and separation. Indeed, many a home is but 
a ruined Paradise, where the old Serpent has 
left in his train the smoke and even the fires 
of the bottomless pit. So that divorce is but a 
feeble exponent of the trouble that comes into 
home life through sin. 

War is a terrible manifestation of the 
suffering that comes to man through sin. This 
tree of bitter fruit has its root also in the soil 
of sin. This black thundercloud draws its 
rainfall of blood from the same old sea of sin. 

War taxes the blood of men and the tears 
of women. For every drop of man's blood, it 
wrings a tear from the eyes of a mother or 
wife or sister. Every groan that burdens the 
field of slaughter finds an echo in the home of 
widowhood and orphanage. Indeed, in the 
home of the bereaved may be more anguish 
and stronger manifestations of misery than on 
the shattered battlefield. 

But war not only taxes our blood and tears, 
it also taxes the substance of men almost 
beyond endurance. Look at the cost of 
standing armies and war implements in time 
of peace, and at the ruined hamlets and dev- 
astated cities in time of war, and then think 
of the taxation that comes after. Look at the 
national debt of England, at the heavy taxes 
of Germany and France, and at the war debt 
of the United States. Enough treasure has 



sin. 79 

been worse than wasted by the wars of these 
nations to make them "rejoice and blossom" 
with great material prosperity, if left in the 
hands of the people, instead of drained from 
them in the way of taxes. All this loss, all 
this evil comes of sin. 

And yet as conditioned by sin, war seems a 
necessary evil. If war was prohibited, it would 
place the best people, who would obey the 
law, at the mercy of the worst, who would not 
obey the law. So there might come out of 
such prohibition the survival of the unfittest. 
To prevent greater evil defensive war must be 
allowed. To teach otherwise is such fanati- 
cism as caused the Jews not to defend them- 
selves on the Sabbath day. 

We repeat; slavery, bad as it may be when 
abstractly considered, has been best, under 
some conditions; and divorce, sad as it is at 
all times, may be best, sometimes, for the 
parties; and war, dreadful as it is under all 
circumstances, may sometimes be unavoidable. 
So God recognizes them as curses that man 
has brought on himself, and as evils that can- 
not be avoided without the risk of greater evil. 
And yet in the last analysis they are expo- 
nents of what sin has done on our planet. 
For, eliminate sin, and universal liberty, in- 
violable marriage, and the universal reign of 
peace would ensue. If this happy time shall 
ever come, it will not be by any sciolistic 
sociology that would re-enter paradise over 
the fire-girdled sword of the cherubim, but it 



80 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

must come through him who was called 
Jesus, because he should save his people 
from their sins. Empty the heart, empty the 
world of sin, and then, but not till then, will 
you take away the destroying; effects of sin — 
slavery, divorce, war, etc. 

Not only these, but every harmful thing in 
the world has its roots in the soil of sin. As 
darnel is said to be the only poisonous grass 
in the world, it is a fit representation of sin or 
of sinners; for sin is really the only harmful 
thing- in the universe. From this tree all bad 
fruit is produced; from this fountain all bitter 
waters flow; from this cause all evils come. 
Your diagnosis is all mere quackery, a dealing 
with symptoms, and ignoring causes, until you 
reach this primitive and final cause of all evil. 
But the evils that we see here as flowing from 
sin are but rivulets that empty in the sea. 
The shores of that sea are beyond our ken. 
But this we learn from Scripture, that it was 
sin that dug hell, and kindled all its bounds, 
and peopled all its regions with fallen angels 
and with fallen men. 



BIN. SX 



VII. 



SIN. 

We are told by some extremists that an un- 
conscious infant is a sinner, so constituted by 
his federal head and representative. When 
asked how that can be, they reply: "Not a 
sinner in the proper acceptation of the word." 
In what sense then is he a sinner? Let us 
quit using words without meaning, and say he 
is not a sinner at all. All that is meant, per- 
haps, is that he is of sinful tendency. He in- 
herits this depravity, but if he yields to it he 
becomes a sinner. Nevertheless he is born by 
grace, prevenient grace meets him at his birth, 
and as he comes to accountability, accepting 
this grace, he may be made free by the Spirit- 
pervaded truth as it is in Jesus Christ. The 
child being "born of the flesh" needs also to be 
"born of the Spirit." He does not need justifi- 
cation, for he is not a sinner to be pardoned. 
He has, by virtue of his natural birth, "filthi- 
ness of the flesh and the spirit" that needs to 
be washed and renewed by the Holy Ghost. 
Taking this view, there is no difficulty in the 
way of infant salvation. Being in the state of 
one who is justified — not needing pardon — 
there is no difficulty in the way of the Spirit's 
working his purification, or meetness for in- 
heritance among the saints. 



82 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

But we are told that sin is something-, and if 
God did not make it, there is something in ex- 
istence that he did not make. 

i. In the first place, sin is an act, and as 
such may be easily understood. God made 
man, and man committed the act. But may 
there not be sin in our evil tendencies when 
there is no act? If the evil tendency is the re- 
sult of our act. If our minds are debauched by 
our evil acts, we are responsible for this, as for 
all the evil consequences that could be fore- 
seen. If a man is drunk when he commits 
murder, he is guilty both of drunkenness and 
murder. If man becomes a devil, he has made 
the sinful impulse irresistible, too strong for 
all the grace that there is in heaven for him, 
and yet every sinful impulse constitutes him a 
fresh sinner. If a man leaps from a precipice, 
he predestinates his own death from the time 
of the leap. If a man runs towards a precipice, 
he may not be able to overcome the mo- 
mentum. So a man may acquire such mo- 
mentum in sin, that there may be no power 
within reach to arrest his descent. If any 
creature debauches his own nature so that sin 
becomes irresistible, he is responsible for all 
the sinful motions of that debauched nature. 

2. In another aspect, sin is the absence of 
good, where we might be and do good. Light is 
something and may be appreciated, but dark- 
ness is nothing; it is but the absence of light; 
so sin, in one aspect, is simply the absence of 
good, and is, therefore, nothing. The sin of 



BIN. 83 

omission is certainly not an entity, and the sin 
of commission is not a thing" existing-, but an 
act. 

3. Sin is the disturbance of the relationships 
that God has established. He has established 
between himself and intelligent creatures the 
relationship of ruler and subjects. Sin is the 
disturbance of this relationship, bearing us 
outside the circle of his subjective demands, 
thus producing revolt, anarchy, and confusion. 
God has established, on our planet, the rela- 
tionship of husband and wife. This relation- 
ship, in order to harmony, demands on the one 
part love and protection, on the other part 
love and obedience. Sin disturbs this relation- 
ship by causing one or both of these par- 
ties to ignore these demands, thus producing 
discord. We might go through all the re- 
lationships of man to man and show that sin 
is the disturbance of these relationships. 
Suffice it, however, to say that good is the har- 
mony of the moral universe in all the spheres 
of life and action, and that sin is the disturb- 
ance of this harmony. We illustrate, and beg" 
that the illustration may not be pressed too 
far. It is not the intention to compare man 
to a machine, but simply to show that his 
nature may become disordered, as a 
machine may get out of order. Then as a 
machine may get out of order, in, and of itself, 
so may our nature get into disorder so that it 
will not work, or it works mischievously. Sin 
consists not of the formation of new elements 



84 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

in our nature, but in the disturbance of the 
elements. It is the disturbance of the old 
good elements of our nature by mingling 
them in a ratio too great or too small. Won- 
derful as this may seem it has analogies in 
nature. Oxygen, hydrogen and carbon in 
certain proportions form sugar; the same 
elements in different proportions will give you 
vinegar. The dusty coal of our furnaces and 
the diamond that flashes in the crown of 
royalty are both formed of carbon. So the 
hateful passion that we call envy is formed of 
the same elements as love; namely: admiration 
and desire. We admire good in our neighbor, 
that is right; we desire good like his, that is 
right also, but when we desire to deprive him 
of the good and appropriate it to ourselves, it 
becomes that base passion we call envy. 
Even hatred, that worst of all passions, either 
human or diabolical, is the product of love. It 
is formed by subtracting the love due to others 
and adding it to self-love. This process may 
be carried on until man becomes a devil, as 
may be seen in the case of Judas. He loved 
himself so excessively as to appropriate to him- 
self money from the purse of charity, entrusted 
to his care. This constituted him a thief 
under the most aggravating circumstances. 
But his self-love culminated in utter self- 
ishness when he sold the Lord and the hope 
of all humanity for thirty pieces of silver. 
Judas is gone now, his selfishness has pushed 
him to the utmost verge of evil; has made him 



sin. 85 

a devil and has left him with other devils, out- 
side the range and limit of redemption. Very 
well does Satan understand this, and hence his 
assault on the Son of Man was from begin- 
ning to end an effort to induce him to employ 
the .redemptive force — the miracle-working- 
power — delegated to him for others, to his 
own use and behoof. Could he have succeeded, 
the moral universe that stood together in 
Christ, might have been drawn off to war 
against the solitary God. 

Love is the golden chain that binds in one 
commonwealth of brotherhood the whole 
family of worlds. It is not merely an attribute 
that, uniting with other attributes, contributes 
to the formation of the divine nature; but it 
is the sum and substance of the divine nature. 
This little monosyllabic Saxon word throws its 
periphery around and sums the divine nature 
— "God is love." All other sublimities and 
glories shrink up and hide away in the pres- 
ence of this wonderful utterance. And God 
made man in his own image. Man was a 
miniature picture, a finite copy of the Infinite. 
Love was the sum and substance of man's 
moral nature. At first he loved God supremely, 
or rather he loved God only; for it was the 
God likeness that he loved in the creature, 
even in himself. In the fall he yielded to the 
suggestion that he might lift himself out of 
the sphere of subordination, and become as 
God; self-sufficient as God. His love, that 
came from God, and that hitherto had flowed 



SO DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

back to God, now remained in himself until, 
becoming- stagnant and fetid, it produced 
moral miasma, pestilence and death, or it was 
like a river that, while confined to its channel, 
sends fertility and life all along its margin, 
but when obstructed and turned out of its 
course, becomes an agent of destruction. 

Love spans the whole extent of heart duty 
to God and man. Yea, it is the generator, 
the parent principle of all duty, in all the 
spheres of life, inward and outward. But if 
you eliminate love to God and to your neigh- 
bor, you get for remainder only self-love. 
Self-love in proper degree is right, but when 
it becomes excessive, it is sinful; and when 
it exists alone and reigns absolute, it makes 
a devil. If the world were composed of 
such as love themselves only, there would 
be no gratitude, no prayer nor obedience to 
God; no sympathy, no social fellowship, no 
helpfulness from man to man. In such case 
man would be a devil, and earth would be helL 

All love turned inward and concentrated 
upon self would be like the light of the sun 
that warms a multitude of worlds all con- 
verged and concentrated on one world to burn 
it to ashes. So we see that sin may exist in 
all phases and degrees without the coming m. 
of any new elements. 

There are those who deny that they are: 
sinners, and there are sinners who profess to 
love God. And there may be a sort of senti- 
mentalism kindled by the beautiful and sublime 



sin . 87 

in nature that might be mistaken for love. 
Green lawns, bloomy and odorous of flowers; 
the calm blue ocean, stretching sublimely 
beyond the range of vision and yet beautiful 
in its sky-borrowed tints and gentle, wavy 
motions; the high sublime of heaven, so high 
as to be dreadful, but that it is softened and 
beautified by its curtain of azure. These and 
kindred scenes may so affect the aesthetical 
conscience as to seem, for a moment, to bring 
it into sympathy with the moral conscience. 
But that this is only apparent sympathy is 
evident from the fact that, although smitten 
with the admiration of nature, men may and 
do sin, even in the presence of such sublime 
beautifulness. The swearer does not forget 
his profanity; the drunkard does not cease his 
potations; nor does the murderer put out the 
fires of his enmity because nature is sublime 
and beautiful. 

No, the sinner is the enemy of God, an ab- 
normal monster, hideous enough to affright 
the moral universe. 

Men are accustomed to talk and write of the 
native goodness of the human heart; of the dig- 
nity of human nature; of the wondrous wis- 
dom and glorious power of man. But if we 
view him as sketched in Scripture; he will seem 
in woeful plight; (i) "Without strength" for 
any good purpose or work; (2) "Ungodly," 
needing help, and yet ignoring God, his only 
hope of help; (3) A sinner; and, (4) God's 
"enemy." Scripture represents his case as 
even worse; for being in this condition he 



88 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

is unconscious of it, asleep, morally stupefied. 
"The opium cloud that overhangs his moral 
sky is constantly raining- soporifics/' 

But we have not yet reached the depth of 
his ruin. He is dead. "Dead in trespasses 
and in sins." The effluvia of his putrid soul, 
held fast in the clutches of moral death and 
yet moved with hell-borrowed enmity, "smells 
rank with offenses to heaven." The fact is, he 
has sunk so low in the pit that an angel's arm 
cannot lift him out, though it be stronger than 
all human strength combined. Indeed, had 
heaven sent out all her shining squadrons, 
their united might would have been inade- 
quate to the help he needed. If there be 
strength for the rescue it cannot be less than 
Almighty. If sin has in it but little sinfulness, 
then a little Christ may suffice for us, as it does 
for the Arians. And if sin be of no moment,, 
asitiswith deists and atheists, then we shall 
need no Christ, no atoning sacrifice at alh 
But if sin be "exceeding sinful," so sinful as to 
baffle all finite conception of its turpitude, then 
We must have the "fulness of the Godhead" ia 
Christ in order to reconciliation. So the 
church should guard well her creed in refer- 
ence to sin, for many errors in theology have 
their rise and outflow from shallow and in- 
adequate views of sin. 

Sin, in its turpitude, can only be estimated 
by the penalty of the law. If God assigns it 
to eternal burnings; and if it required the incar- 
nation and death of his Son to atone for it* 
then it is "exceeding sinful." 



TfiRMINISM J OR, UNPARDONABLE BIN. 89* 

VIII. 

terminism; or, unpardonable sin. 

Unpardonable sin has two counts in it: (i) 
It must be blasphemy; (2) It must be blas- 
phemy against the Holy Ghost; as may be 
seen by reference to Scripture. Thus, "All 
sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, 
and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall 
blaspheme; but he that shall blaspheme 
against the Holy Ghost hath never forgive- 
ness, but is in danger of eternal damnation: 
because they said, he hath an unclean spirit:" 
Mark 3:28-30. 

When Christ says, "All sins shall be for- 
given," it is to be understood, upon the exer- 
cise of faith, for faith is the condition of all 
forgiveness. 

Men have made the mistake that blasphemy 
can only be committed by spoken words, and 
superficial thinkers have emphasized this mis- 
take by reason of the instance given: "Be- 
cause they said, he hath an unclean spirit." 
But blasphemy is often committed by actions. 
God charged that the Jews: "Have burned 
incense upon the mountains, and blasphemed 
me upon the hills:" Isaiah 65:7. Again: "Your 
fathers have blasphemed me . . they saw 
every high hill . . . and they offered there their 
sacrifices:" Ezekiel 20:27-28. For a man to 



90 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

assume the prerogatives of God is blasphemy. 
So that when Christ assumed to forgive sins, 
the Jews charged him with blasphemy: Luke 
5:21, John 10:36. And if he had not been God, 
the charge would have held against him. 
Those who notably lived contrary to their 
profession were guilty of blasphemy. Paul 
puts it thus: "Thou that makest thy boast of 
the law, through breaking the law dishonorest 
thou God? For the name of God is blas- 
phemed among the Gentiles through you: ,r 
Rom. 2:23-24. Again, "I know the blasphemy 
of them which say they are Jews, and are not,, 
but are the synagogue of Satan: Rev. 2:9. 
So the man who professes to be a Christian 
and lives notably below the standard of the 
gospel is a blasphemer. 

Men have also erred in supposing that, since 
the sin against the Holy Ghost is a specific sin, 
that it can be committed only in one way. 
Murder is a specific sin, yet may be committed 
in various ways; by stabbing, shooting, 
poisoning, etc. Theft is a specific sin; and 
may be committed by cheating or gambling, 
as well as by more direct means; any way by 
which a man gets that which belongs to 
another without due compensation. So the 
sin against the Holy Ghost, though a special 
sin, may be committed in various ways. If we 
confine our attention to the utterance of Christ, 
we may suppose that this sin could be com- 
mitted only by attributing the works that he 
did, to Beelzebub. But when we let the tenor 



TERMINISM ; OR, UNPARDONABLE SIN. 91 

of Scripture pour its light upon this text, as 
we should, we understand him better. The 
"crabbed textuists," as Milton calls them, who 
attempt to read the text only by its own light, 
will hardly ever get it right. 

Not every sin against the Holy Ghost 
amounts to blasphemy against him. For, in- 
deed, every sin is against the Holy Ghost; 
against the Trinity, and against each person- 
ality. The wonderful discrimination that Christ 
makes in this utterance is remarkable, and 
amounts almost to a conclusive argument 
for his divinity. There may be sin against the 
Holy Ghost that is pardonable; but blasphemy 
against him, "Hath never forgiveness." This 
sin, then, must be blasphemy against him in 
his official work, which is to enlighten, to 
convict, or to quicken. And so runneth the 
tenor of Scripture. 

The only excuse that can be made for sin is 
ignorance. It may, indeed, be the only nucleus 
around which redemption could wind its reme- 
dial scheme. At any rate, the Scriptures give 
this as a reason for the extension of pardon. 
"The times of this ignorance God winked at." 
Eve states the simple fact: "The serpent be- 
guiled me/'J Paul declares that "If we sin will- 
fully after that we have received the knowledge 
of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice 
for sins." Christ prays for those that crucify 
him. "Father forgive them, for they know not 
what they do." Here the intimation is that if 
they had known that they were crucifying the 



92 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

Son of God, their sin would have been unpar- 
donable. It would have been blasphemy 
against the Holy Ghost, in his office of enlight- 
ener. Paul persecuted Christ and was for that 
reason a blasphemer. If he had known that 
Jesus was the Christ, his persecution would 
have been blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, 
which would have been unpardonable. But 
he did not know. Hence, he says: "I ob- 
tained mercy because I did it ignorantly in un- 
belief." 

Apostasy, though it may be reached by a 
series of sins, amounts to the blasphemy 
against the Holy Ghost. It is put this way, 
Heb. 6: 4-6: "For it is impossible for those 
who were once enlightened, and have tasted 
of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers 
of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good 
word of God, and the powers of the world 
to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them 
again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to 
themselves the Son of God afresh, and put 
him to an open shame." Now there are va- 
rious stages of backsliding before a man 
usually reaches apostasy, though, perhaps, 
he might reach it at one leap. The Ephesian 
Church most of us would have thought a 
first-rate church. They "labored," that 
is, did much hard work, had "patience," 
and" fainted not." Nevertheless, Christ de- 
clares, through the Spirit, that he had some- 
what against them: "Because thou hast left 
thy first love." He exhorts them, therefore, 



terminism; or, unpardonable sin. 93 

to "repentance." In default of which he would 
"remove their candlestick," that is, unchurch 
them. They were backslidden, not outwardly, 
but in heart. 

There are many people, and, indeed, many 
churches in our day that are in the condition 
of the church at Ephesus; they are active 
enough in church work, and yet never had this 
first love, or have departed from it. The pas- 
tor should look well to the spiritual condition 
of each one and of his whole church; else in 
putting - them to work, he will do more harm 
than good to them, and, through them, to all 
that are touched by their efforts. Christ says 
to the sinner, "Come;" to the Christian, "Go." 
Not only may people "backslide" in heart, but 
in addition, neglect outward duty, as was the 
case with the church at Laodicea; yet they 
may repent, and are exhorted so to do. They 
may go further and commit overt acts of diso- 
bedience; even very bad acts, as in the case of 
David and Peter, and yet be restored; never- 
theless, it must be by very bitter repentance, as 
we read in their cases. But if they go further, 
so that with light in their intellects and malice 
in their hearts they say Christ was an impostor 
or treat him as such, they blaspheme the Holy 
Ghost, since "they crucify him afresh and put 
him to an open shame." But some say you 
cannot apostatize, because when you once re- 
ceive grace you can never lose it. Even such 
men as Kindrick and Chalmers held that the 
text does not say they can fall, but "If they 



94 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

fall." Now this quibble is unworthy of such 
men, and of the gospel. Suppose a man should 
say to his child: "If you pluck the sun from 
his orbit I will give you the worst chastisement 
in the world." To threaten him thus for do- 
ing- an impossibility would be regarded as a 
great absurdity. Yet, this view represents our 
Heavenly Father as doing that way. But 
these men ought to have known that there is 
a wrong rendering here. The new version has 
it right, not "If they fall," but, "Fell away." 
It reads thus: "For as touching those who 
were once enlightened, and tasted of the heav- 
enly gift, and were made partakers of the 
Holy Ghost, and tasted the good word of 
God, and the powers of the age to come, and 
then fell away, it is impossible to renew them 
again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to 
themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him 
to an open shame." This is a clear case of 
blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. 

For a man who has known the pardoning 
mercy of God, to cease to meet in the assembly 
of the saints, is such an aggravated sin, if per- 
sisted in, to amount to blasphemy against the 
Holy Ghost. Especially when the assembly 
is for the preaching of the gospel. For that 
is the divinely and highest ordained means of 
saving grace. "It hath pleased God by the 
foolishness of preaching to save them that be- 
lieve." And we do not remember in a half cen- 
tury to have known a half dozen men 
reached without that instrumentality. The 



terminism; or, unpardonable sin. 95 

preacher is an ambassador accredited from 
the court of heaven to this rebellious province 
of earth, to treat with men, and offer to them 
terms of reconciliation. To reject an ac- 
credited ambassador is such an insult to the 
court he represents as to be cause of war. It 
is no less insulting" to God when we reject a 
divinely accredited ambassador, and turn con- 
temptuously away from the highest means of 
grace. For a man to retire and fortify himself 
against the preached word, especially when 
he knows that word as the instrument of sal- 
vation, is to commit a sin that, at least, grazes 
the unpardonable. But let us hear the dec- 
laration of Scripture, Heb. 10:23-29: "Let 
us hold fast the profession of our faith without 
wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;) 
And let us consider one another to provoke 
unto love and to good works: Not forsaking 
the assembling of ourselves together, as the 
manner of some is; but exhorting one another: 
and so much the more, as ye see the day 
approaching. For if we sin wilfully after that 
we have received the knowledge of the truth, 
there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but 
a certain fearful looking for of judgment ana 
fiery indignation, which shall devour the ad- 
versaries. He that despised Moses' law died 
without mercy under two or three witnesses: 
Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, 
shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden 
under foot the Son of God, and hath counted 
the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was 



96 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done 
despite unto the Spirit of grace?" There can 
be no doubt that those who, as described 
above, "count the blood of the covenant 
wherewith they were sanctified an unholy 
thing," "trample under foot the Son of God," 
and do "despite to the Spirit of grace," have 
blasphemed the Holy Ghost; or in other words 
have committed the sin that "hath never for- 
giveness." "Let him that thinketh he standeth 
take heed lest he fall," and so fall as never to 
rise again. 

But are there any instances in which it is 
reasonably clear that men committed this sin? 
We are persuaded that there are many such 
instances both in Scripture and in the bounds 
of human observation. It is said that the 
Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart. But how? 
It is inconceivable that God should harden any 
man's heart except by withdrawing grace from 
him. Whenever a man sins against light, 
and quickening influences, the Lord withdraws 
the Spirit, more and more, so that the time 
must come when all is gone. So God left 
Pharaoh more and more to himself for his con- 
tinued sins until Pharaoh was ready to rush 
madly to his fate. The antediluvian world had 
corrupted itself so that God determined to de- 
stroy it for sin; and so he did. God promised 
Abraham the land of Canaan, but in Abra- 
ham's day gave him no land for a possession. 
And why? The iniquity of the Amorites was 
not yet full: Gen. 15:16. Melchizedek was 



terminism; or, unpardonable sin. 97 

then reigning- in Salem, a greater arid better 
man than Abraham himself. God would allow 
them all means and time for repentance. But 
all failing;, four hundred years afterwards, he 
commissioned Joshua to exterminate them. 
They had sinned away their opportunities. 
So was it with Jerusalem, in after years, and 
Christ says: "Behold your house is left unto 
you desolate." Again: "When he was come 
near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, say- 
ing, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least 
in this thy day, the things which belong unto 
thy peace, but now they are hid from thine 
eyes!" Though they had another offer, yet to 
most of them, the day was ended. They con- 
tinued to close their eyes and ears; and it hap- 
pened to them as Solomon had said: "He, 
that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, 
shall suddenly be destroyed, and that with- 
out remedy:" Pro v. 29:1. This is a re- 
markable case. The teaching of Christ 
was so clear that the Christians in the 
city understood it, and when the siege was 
raised temporarily, they escaped to Pella, 
and were saved; but the blinded Jews, eleven 
hundred thousand of them, fell by famine, and 
pestilence and the sword of Titus. Their day 
soon ended, was virtually ended when 
he, weeping, pronounced their doom. 

Judas blasphemed the Holy Ghost. He had, 
as trusted with the purse of charity, been steal- 
ing — for how long before he sold the Lord, we 
do not know. But when he added that sin, all 



9$ DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

was gone. Christ said: "Have I not chosen 
[elected] you twelve and one of you is a 
devil." Judas became a devil by this great 
willful sin. And Christ said: "Better for that 
man that he had never been born." The re- 
pentance of Judas was what Paul calls "the 
sorrow of the world that worketh death." It 
did so literally in his case. 

The sin of Ananias and Sapphira was 
blasphemy against the Holy Ghost; for Peter 
charges that Ananias "lied to the Holy 
Ghost," and Sapphira was "privy to it." 

All that saved Peter from this sin was that 
he was surprised, it was not deliberate; and he 
was frightened, it was not willful. And it was 
ignorance in Simon, the magician, that led 
Peter to think that he might be forgiven. 

And there are pretty clear instances in our 
day, two of which we will relate. 

A man, in the State of Virginia, attended a 
meeting in which the Spirit powerfully con- 
victed him of sin. He determined not to yield, 
and left the meeting with the purpose of 
getting away from the influence; but after- 
wards, he confessed that as he put his foot in 
the stirrup to leave he was conscious that the 
Spirit left him, and that he never felt any more 
his influences, nor any disposition to be 
religious. 

Another instance is published in the Metho- 
dist Magazine of 1820, Joshua Soule and T. 
Mason, editors. The following is an abstract, 
pp. 347-351: The man was quite a devoted 



TERMINISM ; OR, UNPARDONABLE SIN. 99 

Christian, but he married a gay, worldly wo- 
man. She loved the dance and other worldly 
amusements. She worried and worried him 
to get him to quit his prayers and accompany 
her to places of worldly amusements. He 
resisted for a time, but finally yielded to her 
importunity. After continuing for some time 
in this way, he was stricken down with disease, 
so that death seemed to stare him in the face. 
Being alarmed, he sent for pious persons to 
pray for him. He said if God would spare his 
life, he would live for him. And God did hear 
and spare him. His wife redoubled her dili- 
gence to lead him astray again and finally 
succeeded. He went on again, for some time, 
in this gay and wicked course. At last another 
spell of sickness fell upon him. But this time 
he did not send for the good people to come 
and pray with him. Nevertheless, they visited 
him. But he told them that his day of grace 
had ended. They urged that he might be 
mistaken. "No," said he, "I am not mistaken, 
I am as certain of my damnation as I am of 
my affliction." Just before his death he called 
to his wife to bring him some cold water. 
"For," said he, "in one hour I shall be where 
I shall never get another drop." After drink- 
ing, he addressed his wife in this language: 
"Becky, Becky, you are the cause of my 
eternal damnation." And thus he died. 

There may be yet another way in which a 
man may blaspheme the Holy Ghost and thus 
terminate his chances for salvation. Solomon 



100 DOCTRINES POK THE TIMES. 

cautions us on this wise: "Remember now 
thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the 
evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, 
when thou shall say, I have no pleasure in 
them:" Eccl. 12:1. Again he says of those 
who persistently resist the calls of mercy: 
"Then shall they call upon me, but I will not 
answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall 
not find me:" Prov. 1:28. 

We may by nonuse produce atrophy of the 
spiritual faculties so that we can neither see, 
nor feel, nor do. To neglect is dangerous. 
"How shall we escape if we nelect so great 
salvation." And it may be, even where there 
is no judicial decree that we should be lost, 
that we may so incapacitate ourselves for re- 
pentance and faith that their exercise will be 
impossible. There are many analogies of 
this condition in nature. Take a boy who has 
opportunities of schooling. But neglecting 
them until he gets to be old and poor, and has 
a family to support, he has lost his opportunity. 
He now can never acquire the culture of the 
schools. Scientists tell us that the mole once 
had eyes, but he has burrowed underground 
so long that his eyes have gone out by non- 
use. Thus it is with fishes in the dark caves of 
the earth. So if a man loves spiritual dark- 
ness rather than light, we should expect his spir- 
itual eyes to go out and leave him to stumble 
on in perpetual darkness. 

And yet many people are congratulating 
themselves that they are not alarmed by fear- 



TJfiKMIKISMJ OR, UNPARDONABLE sin. iOl 

ful providences and the preaching - of the gos- 
pel as they used to be. But this is a very bad 
symptom, perhaps the worst in their case. 
It means that they are losing their spiritual 
sensibilities. Behold that traveler in northern 
countries, over snowy mountains! At first he 
feels the cold with such sensation as causes 
him to tremble and wish for shelter. But after 
awhile his senses get more and more be- 
numbed; drowsiness begins to creep over him; 
he would lie down and sleep. But if he goes 
to sleep that snow will likely become his wind- 
ing sheet. So it is with the man whose spirit- 
ual sensibilities are getting sleepy. If he goes 
to sleep, nothing this side the thunder peal of 
doom may be able to awake him. 

When a man is converted, it is henceforth 
on to perfection, or else a drawing back and 
downward to apostasy. And when a child 
crosses the line of accountability, henceforth it 
is on to conversion, or else down to the loss 
and forfeiture of all capacity to receive and use 
the grace that would secure his salvation. We 
know all are dead in sin; but the case we are 
considering may be "twice dead, plucked up 
by the roots." 

And now, in closing this chapter, we may 
say that sometimes, no doubt, Satan gets the 
advantage of people, especially of those of 
melancholy temperament, by persuading them 
that they have committed the unpardonable 
sin, and thus leading them to despair, when 
they might lay hold on the hope set before 



10:2 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

them. He plied John Bunyan sorely with this 
temptation. But if there be a tender con* 
science and a disposition to grieve for having 
offended God, we may take courage and have 
hope for the pardoning mercies of God. For 
the desire and longing for salvation were 
kindled in us by reclaiming grace. The more 
we desire, though it be with trembling and 
alarm, the more should we be assured that 
neither has grace departed, nor has the 
capacity to receive it been destroyed. His 
loving kindness and tender mercies are yet 
extended to us. 

The man who is increasing his distance from 
God, while God is in such a case as assuredly 
withdrawing his grace, is in a miserable con- 
dition. He is like a planet that should wander 
from the sun; each year getting further from 
the central influence, and nearer some other 
attracting power, until the adverse attracting 
force becomes irresistible. Perhaps, in every 
case where a man dies without God and with- 
out hope, this state has been reached. As sin- 
ners get older they get further and further 
from God, and also harder and harder to be 
won unto salvation, until all the driving and 
alluring power of the gospel will fail to reach 
them. 

As was said of old, "All roads lead to 
Rome," so all sins lead to the unpardonable 
sin. 



CONSCIENCE. 10& 

IX. 

CONSCIENCE. 

We have read and heard much about con- 
science, and yet must confess that we have not 
been able to accept anyone's views as upon the 
whole satisfactory. That it pertains to all men 
must be conceded. Paul and Cicero both as- 
sume it. Paul says: 'Their conscience also 
bearing- witness;" and Cicero says: "Magna vis 
est conscienticeT Mr. Hutchison, Lord Shafts- 
bury and others call it 'The moral sense," 
and suppose it to be an original faculty. If it 
be indeed intuitive, it would not depend on ex- 
ternal circumstances; but we know by observa- 
tion that it often does. By others it is re- 
garded as a habit. And there can be no doubt 
that habits, good or bad, have much influence 
upon conscience; yet it is not true that con- 
science is a mere creature of habit, else it 
would always be on the side of repeated ac- 
tions. Bishop Butler's celebrated aphorism 
that "If conscience had might as it has 
right, it would absolutely rule the world," gen- 
erally accepted by school and pulpit, has done 
immense mischief. If conscience were always 
right we should not have to go to Rome for an 
infallible pope, since every man would have 
one in his own bosom. This view also contra- 
dicts Scripture when we read of a "seared 



104 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

conscience," of a "defiled conscience," and of 
an "evil conscience." For the same reason 
we must reject Mr. Mahan's definition, that 
"Conscience is the voice of God within us." 
But the great popular error is that "Con- 
science is a guide;" that if a man's conscience 
approves his course, we may know by that 
token that he is in a safe way. To this we 
have to say: 

i. In the first place, if conscience be a guide 
it supersedes the written Word and the Holy 
Spirit, the author of the Word. Christ says: 
"When he is come he shall guide you into all 
truth." The Spirit, by shining upon men's 
hearts, and by Scripture, of which he is the 
author, is our guide. He who lights a lamp 
does it when the sun is down; so he who turns 
to conscience for a guide, turns himself away 
from the Sun of righteousness. If we wish a 
perfect guide, "The law of the Lord is perfect." 
If we wish for light while darkness covers the 
earth and gross darkness the minds of the 
people, "The entrance of the word giveth 
light." The Spirit-pervaded word is a light to 
our feet and a lamp to our pathway. 

2. If conscience be a faculty, it is a faculty of 
human nature; if it be a habit, it is a habit of 
human nature; no matter what it maybe, it is a 
part of human nature. But human nature is 
corrupt, and we shall not find truth and right- 
eousness by following a corrupt guide. As you 
might trust the compass with an iron mountain 
by your side, so may you trust human nature 



CONSCIENCE. 105 

or any part thereof for guidance on questions 
of oughtness. We may trust the conscience 
as a sailor may trust the stars when the sky is 
overcast with clouds. 

3. If conscience be a guide, it must speak the 
same language to all: it must point only in 
one direction. This conscience does not do. 
In heathen countries there has seemed to be 
no consciousness of wrong for the neglect of 
father or mother when they become old and 
helpless. Conscience has been pleaded by 
persecutor and persecuted. The one thinks 
the other ought to die for his faith, and fire 
cannot melt the faith out of the other. This 
is no random statement. Saul of Tarsus 
thought he was doing right in sanctioning the 
murder of Stephen, and all along in persecut- 
ing the church, until he came in sight of 
Damascus, and saw the light and heard the 
voice of rebuke from the Nazarene. After- 
wards he labors to build, and risks his life to 
sustain the cause that he had heretofore per- 
secuted. So that conscience does not point 
the individual always in the same direction. 
The question has been raised: "How could 
Saul be a sinner while his conscience approved 
his course?" The answer is not difficult. Saul 
had chosen a wrong guide, a deceived heart 
had led him astray. The wise man hath 
truly said: "He that trusteth to his own heart 
is a fool." 

Conscience is, indeed, a very variable and 
changeful thing. Sometimes it will hardly 



106 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

cover a retail trade in liquor, and yet it will 
cover a wholesale trade. Some men are hor- 
rified by chicken thieves, and at the same 
time can deprive another of thousands, without 
compunction, by the agency of cards or by 
the race course. One would hang" a man for 
murder on the highway, and yet count it hon- 
orable and worthy of commendation to kill 
him in a duel. In fact, you may stretch con- 
science until it will in some way cover all 
the dark mountains of sin. You may take a 
Christian and let him become lukewarm and 
his conscience will get sleepy, so that he will 
follow or drift with the multitude. But wake 
him up, let him get in deep earnest, and he 
cannot live as he did before. We know a 
man, who in the careless state mentioned 
above, though a member of the church, could 
without compunction take three drinks of 
whisky every day. Now you could no sooner 
get that man to poison himself with whisky, 
by drinking it as a beverage, than you could 
get him to take arsenic. Now he is an earnest, 
active Christian, having a very different con- 
science from the one he used to have. Con- 
science does not speak the same language to all, 
does not make the same utterance to the same 
man at different times. Even environment 
sometimes colors the texture of conscience. 
The quantity of ozone in the moral atmos- 
phere often determines the moral status of 
some men. "Because iniquity abounds the 
love of many waxes cold." Evil communica- 



CONSCIENCE. 107 

tions corrupt good manners. It is very com- 
mon for people to imagine that it is well with 
thern, because they are as good as their 
associates; especially if their associates be 
members of the church, and held in reputation 
among men. 

Conscience so far from being a guide, above 
all things, needs a guide for itself. Conscience 
unenlightened and unpurified by the Word 
and Spirit does not and cannot know the way. 
If a man were traveling over the Alps, and he 
should find that his guide knew not the way, 
he would not risk himself amid slippery preci- 
pice and trembling avalanche with such a 
guide. He would pause and seek a better 
guide. Alas! that the children of this world 
should be "wiser than the children of light." 

What then is conscience? And what is its 
function? Dr. Paley, in his chapter on the "Law 
of the Land" seems unconsciously to have 
grazed the true idea of conscience. He says 
about to this effect: "If a man make the law of 
honor, or of the land, or of Scripture, his rule of 
action he will be satisfied with himself if his 
actions conform to his rule of action; and he 
will be dissatisfied with himself when he does 
not live according to his rule." If he had gone 
a little further and said this satisfaction or dis- 
satisfaction is caused by conscience in the ex- 
ercise of its true and only function, how had he 
"Blessed mankind and rescued me." But in- 
stead of doing this, in his chapter on con- 
science, he goes off to discuss the question as to 



108 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

whether conscience is innate or not. And after 
using- the "Wild boy caught near Hanover," 
comes to the conclusion, as we remember, that 
it is impossible to come to any conclusion. 
The Latin writers, notably Cicero, use con- 
scientia indiscriminately for conscience and 
consciousness. And, indeed, it may not be very 
far off to say that conscience is consciousness 
making- report on questions of oughtness. 
But from the etymology of the word we may 
be led to more definite conceptions. It is from 
con, tog-ether, with, and scto, I know. The 
Greek word has nearly the same meaning- by 
its composition. It is from sun, tog-ether, and 
eido, I see. Then, I know, or I see some- 
thing- in conjunction with something- else. 
Then, I know my actions, and I know the law 
that I have chosen as the rule of my action. I 
take up my actions and put them by the side of 
the law. If they coincide, if they agree, I am 
satisfied. If they disagree, I am not satisfied. 
For instance: If I make the law of honor my 
rule, I am satisfied so long- as I conform to that 
law. If I make the law of the land my rule 
of action, I am satisfied so long- as my actions 
conform to that law. But if I make Scripture 
my rule of action, I am not satisfied, though I 
may be justified by the code of honor and by 
the law of the land; my actions, when laid 
down by the law of God, must coincide with * 
that law; and if they do not, my conscience 
bears witness to the fact. I know, I see the 
law and my actions together, side by side, and 



CONSCIENCE. 109 

my conscience is thus formed and bears witness 
to the facts in the case. This is conscience 
with its function — that function being to 
bear testimony. Hence, we read: "Their con- 
science also bearing witness;" and again: "Our 
rejoicing is the testimony of our conscience/' 
Some injure the value of conscience by giving 
it overwork to perform, make it of "all 
trades" and hence "good at none." They con- 
ceive of conscience as prosecutor, sheriff, 
witness, judge and jury; in a word, a whole 
court, to try the moral quality of actions. But 
we get better work when we give conscience 
only one function to perform. But does not 
the Scripture favor the idea that it is a court, 
where Christ says: "Convicted of their con- 
science?" No. That is, according to the 
critics, an interpolation. And because the 
translators concede this, it is virtually left out 
of the New Version. But if we accept it as 
Scripture, it would mean that when Christ 
said: "Let him that is without sin cast the 
first stone," they, by going back over their 
lives and comparing their action with the law, 
were brought to conviction. It is by testi- 
mony that conviction is induced. 

We have shown that conscience is not a 
guide, not a court for trial, and not always are- 
liable witness, but is the consciousness bearing 
testimony on questions of oughtness. 



110 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

X. 

GOD RECONCILED. 

When man sinned, God was hindered or held 
back from the exercise of pardon by every 
attribute of his nature. 

To avoid inconsistencies, let us say at the 
outset that we do not consider mercy an at- 
tribute of God. Richard Watson, the safest 
of all writers on theology, says: "It is an off- 
shoot of his goodness — benevolence — rich, 
luxuriant, but still an offshoot." Dr. Adam 
Clarke defines it: "Exuberant goodness." 
Some good people in their prayers call it a 
"darling attribute." An attribute is an essen- 
tial property of the divine nature, without 
which God could not exist. If he be not just, 
or truthful, or holy, he could not be God. But 
mercy, being the extension of relief to the suf- 
fering, never could have had play in the di- 
vine administration, without sin, which is the 
primal cause of all suffering. But for sin there 
would have been no suffering and, of course, 
no relief, no bestowal of mercy. Those who 
hold that mercy is an attribute, put mercy and 
justice in conflict. Justice demands that the 
sinner should be punished, while mercy requires 
his release. Here is conflict, war in heaven, 
not such as Milton describes between fallen 
angels and those who kept their first estate, but 



GOD RECONCILED. Ill 

war in the Godhead between mercy and justice. 
If mercy were an attribute, an essential prop- 
erty of the divine nature, there would have been 
no need of the atonement, for all that would 
have been necessary would have been for God 
to act according" to his own nature and the sin- 
ner would have been rescued from the conse- 
quences of his sin. Mercy was born on Gol- 
gotha, born in death and bought by blood. 
Mercy is the product of benevolence through 
the expedient of the atonement — no atone- 
ment, no mercy. To say that mercy might 
have play in the divine administration with- 
out the expedient of atonement would be to 
extend hope to the trembling devils and bid 
mercy triumph over all the attributes; to make 
mercy triumph over God. 

When man sinned God was held back from 
the exercise of mercy by every attribute of his 
nature. But to be brief, we say he was held 
back by the two principles of justice and be- 
nevolence. If God be just and benevolent he 
cannot exercise mercy until these principles 
are satisfied. The satisfaction of these prin- 
ciples is what we call propitiation, and the 
sacrifice by which it is made is an atonement. 
Here are two persons: one of them does justly, 
loves mercy and walks humbly with God; the 
other, under cover of night, breaks into a 
house, robbing and murdering a helpless 
mother and her children. Now, we hold that 
the law ought to put a difference between 
these persons. 



112 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

Every one who loves justice, will say that 
this guilty party ought to be punished ; indeed, 
that any punishment will come short of his 
deserts. Thus all just persons recognize the 
fact that justice demands the punishment of 
the guilty. 

Benevolence also demands the punishment 
of the guilty; demands it on the ground of 
benevolence. For if this guilty person go free 
other innocent persons are in danger of suffer- 
ing by him. Therefore, when man sinned 
both justice and benevolence demanded his 
punishment. If the sinner should be released 
by any act of mere arbitrary power, all the 
justice and benevolence in God and in the 
moral universe would have risen against it. 
Justice would have risen against it because the 
sinner deserved punishment; and benevolence 
would have risen against it because the 
welfare of others would have been endangered 
by it. 

Here the difficult question arises: Could 
there have been any expedient devised whereby 
justice could have been satisfied, the welfare 
of the universe secured, and yet the guilty 
party escape? This is a question of exceeding 
great difficulty. Superficial thinkers some- 
times shift the difficulty to the other side. 
They ask, how could God be just or benevo- 
lent, and yet punish the guilty? Take the 
instance adduced above of the man who, under 
cover of night, robs and murders a sleep- 
ing mother and her helpless children. The 



GOD RECONCILED. 113 

jury renders a verdict of guilty, there being no 
reasonable doubt of guilt; the judge pro- 
nounces sentence. Now the question is not, 
how can the man be punished? That is plain; 
no difficulty in that direction. But if you wish 
to get him off, to turn him loose, then the 
question arises, how? Employ a tricky lawyer 
to take the advantage of some technicality to 
get a new trial, and then bribe witnesses and 
jurors? Be sure none of these methods can 
obtain in heaven's high chancery. The diffi- 
cult question that confronts us is this: How 
can the guilty escape and yet the principles of 
justice and benevolence be maintained in the 
divine administration? 

Such a scheme was devised. The innocent 
suffered for the guilty; Christ died in the stead 
of the sinner. 

Infidels have said that to punish the inno- 
cent for the guilty is to make the matter worse. 
And it has troubled some of the best minds 
that were reverent and desirous of understand- 
ing the true doctrine. Mr. Mozley in his "Uni- 
versity Sermons" discusses this question. 
He brings a vast array of learning to bear on 
it, and yet fails, because he is afraid to use the 
only key that can open the door and let us out 
of the difficulty — substitution. 

If the sinner is turned loose it must be on 
some clear, comprehensible, and satisfactory 
principle. It was by substitution. The math- 
ematician will understand this, for he gets sub- 
stitution by an axiom in his science. If he has 



114 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

two quantities that are equal or of equal value, 
he can substitute one for the other and no 
harm is done to the result. Take x+Y=i5 and 
x — y=5. The mathematician knows by inspec- 
tion that in this equation x=io and y=5. For 
104-5=15 and 10 — 5=5. Anybody can see that 
the equation is preserved and no harm is done 
by the substitution of 10 for x and 5 for y. 
Thus there was substituted the equal human 
nature of Christ for the equal human nature of 
Adam. So that the grand central truth of the 
gospel has its foundation in the axiomatic truth 
of substitution. Moreover, it is clearly re- 
vealed in Scripture: "Christ died for the un- 
godly:" Rom. 5:6. "We were reconciled to 
God by the death of his Son:" Rom. 5:10. 
"Christ died for our sins:" I. Cor. 15:3. "He 
died for all:" II. Cor. 5:15. The doctrine of 
substitution is one of the best established doc- 
trines of Scripture; that is, that Christ suffered 
death in the room or stead of sinners. Handle 
this doctrine gingerly, as if you felt the need 
of apologizing for it, and it may sting like a 
nettle; but clasp it firmly, fearlessly, and it be- 
comes a staff of support and comfort. The 
doctrine of vicarious sacrifice may be too high 
for human reason. We dare say it is; for 
wherever there are sacrifices by the heathen, 
they come not of human origin, but of revela- 
tion perverted. But when the substituted sac- 
rifice of Christ is announced in Scripture and 
understood by us, it becomes a covering, a 
shelter; really, the only mount of hope. 



GOD RECONCILED. 115 

But it will not do to take the innocent by 
any arbitrary power and punish him for the 
guilty. That would be to act like the savage 
Indian, who, when one white man has injured 
him, seeks satisfaction out of the next white 
man that comes within the range of his power. 
If the innocent may be substituted for the 
guilty, it must be by his own voluntary act. 
The question then arises: Did Christ, in his 
human nature, suffer voluntarily? His birth 
was miraculous. His humanity was no more 
consulted, as to his birth, than other men. But 
in reference to his death his human nature was 
consulted. Hear his own testimony. He says: 
"No man taketh my life, I lay it down of my- 
self." He says: "Thinkest thou that I can- 
not now pray to my Father, and he shall 
presently give me more than twelve legions 
of angels?" — seventy-two thousand. One angel 
was enough to slay all the firstborn of Egypt, 
and one was sufficient to overthrow Sennach- 
erib and his great army. No doubt seventy- 
two thousand angels would have overmatched 
the combined powers of earth and hell. They 
would have been amply sufficient for the 
rescue. Christ knew that the Father was not 
going to allow his life to be taken without his 
consent; for he was ready to send the angels 
at his request. That he had a great struggle 
there can be no doubt. He prays: "If it be 
possible, let this cup pass from me." In re- 
ferring to this, Paul says: "In the days of his 
flesh, when he had offered up prayers and 



116 DOCTRINES FOE THE TIMES. 

supplications with strong" crying" and tears 
unto him that was able to save him from 
death, and was heard in that he feared:" Heb. 
5:7. If he had refused to drink the cup of 
death, then the world could not have been 
redeemed, by him. His prayer is heard and 
the fear of death is taken away, so that he 
goes to the cross a conqueror. He went to 
the tomb, not as we go, of necessity, and by 
compulsion, but voluntarily, "free among the 
dead." In his submission he gains the victory. 
Hence he says: "Nevertheless, not my will, 
but thine be done." Thus the human will of 
Christ volunteers to suffer unto death. 
His suffering has no parallel in history: 

1. In the disorganization of his more per- 
fect organization. The more perfect the or- 
ganization the greater the force and, by con- 
sequence, the greater the suffering to produce 
disorganization. Frequent suffering deadens 
the sensibilities. We see this exemplified in 
the greater suffering of the more robust, with 
the same diseases. It is a kind provision for 
the afflicted. It took a greater degree of suf- 
fering, by reason of his more perfect organiza- 
tion, to force the life out of the body of Christ. 

2. In his higher sense of honor he suffered 
more than men could suffer from the shame. 
If you hang or send to the penitentiary, a low, 
base man he cares mostly for the physical 
privation and pain; but take an honorable 
gentleman and hang him, or send him to the 
penitentiary, and the shame of the punishment 



GOD RECONCILED. 117 

thrills his soul with deeper agony. It was 
written in Jewish record: "Cursed is every- 
one that hangeth on a tree." Cicero, in his 
oration against Caius Verres, charges him 
with the heinous crime of putting to the infa- 
mous death of the cross a Roman citizen. 
Thus was Jesus humbled; his soul, that was 
more honorable than any man's, felt all the hu- 
miliation of such a death, between the thieves. 

3. His mental agony, before the infliction 
of physical pain, was so great as to force the 
blood through the pores of the skin, in great 
drops. 

4. Before any outward violence is offered 
to him, he says: "My soul is exceeding sor- 
rowful, even unto death." And likely he would 
have died, but 

5. An angel is sent to strengthen him; not 
to alleviate the suffering, not to hold back the 
bolt, not to turn aside the storm, but to 
strengthen him, that he may be able to bear it 
all. More than human endurance, that he may 
suffer the penalty for human sin. 

6. Hear his wonderful lament, as if coming 
from a heart surcharged with anguish incon- 
ceivable: "My God! my God! why hast thou 
forsaken me?" Many good men have felt the 
supporting power of God in the hour of death. 
Mr. John Wesley says: "The best of all is 
that God is with us." But this immaculate 
one must endure the mysterious hiding of the 
Father's face. There seems a great agony 
of wonder and mystery, when he cries out of 



118 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

the darkness: "My God! my God! why hast 
thou forsaken me?" Yet, it must be confessed 
that his sufferings in duration were not equal to 
the eternity of suffering" due to one individual 
sinner, to say nothing of the sinful race. But, 
in fact, it was equivalent to more than this, and 
met the penalty of the law more clearly and 
fully than the individual sinner could ever have 
done. The penalty of the law was death, 
eternal death. Suppose, then, the penalty 
visited upon the offender. He suffers on 
through the ages, through all the cycles of 
ages that could be enumerated; let this be re- 
peated as often as can be imagined. Then let 
us pause and ask: How much of the penalty 
is gone? The answer would be: The pen- 
alty is as great now as it was in the begin- 
ning, eternal, and can never be less. It is 
clear that the offender could never suffer 
the penalty — never come to the end of it. 
But this the Lord Jesus the Christ could do, 
because of his divinity that stamped the suf- 
fering with infinite merit. His infinite merit 
outweighs, outcounts eternal duration. Eter- 
nal duration runs only in one direction, but in- 
finite merit runs in all directions, stretch- 
ing illimitably in all directions. No matter 
how big the sin, no matter how great the pen- 
alty, here is a covering wide and long enough 
to outstretch it. So that we may say : "Where 
sin abounded, grace did much more abound." 
Moreover, for all practical purposes, the 
divine nature suffered. God was the offended 



GOD RECONCILED. 119 

party, and hence he, no doubt, had the right 
to substitute himself. Under the Mosaic law, 
if a man committed a theft he must restore 
fourfold, but in default of payment he must be 
sold into bondage until he should work out 
the penalty. But if the man from whom he 
had stolen should volunteer to pay the fine for 
him, the judge must release him. The penalty 
of the law, having been met, can have no 
further claims upon the offender. Now it was 
God's law that was violated, and he was in- 
carnated; in him dwelt "all the fullness of the 
Godhead bodily." So that in the humanity 
his divinity was obscured. Thus he laid aside 
the glory that he had from the first. Through 
this humanity men scorned him, spat on him, 
crowned him with mock royalty and with 
thorns, and, between a blushing sun and 
trembling earth, hung him up to the shameful 
death of the cross. The union of the two 
natures, in Christ, is hypostatic and not ele- 
mental, there is not a mixing up of the two 
natures, but a binding together of a whole 
human personality with the divine personality. 
And yet this union constitutes the one Lord 
and Saviour Jesus Christ. Hence, in this 
divine man there was reflex divine and human 
sympathy. Thus we have an High Priest 
that can be touched with the feeling of our in- 
firmities. It is this divine-human sacrifice 
that was offered for us; that became our 
substitute. It is unquestionably enough, being 
an infinite sacrifice. 



120 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

Behold the suffering Son of God! Here is 
the highest conceivable exhibition of God's 
hatred of sin, and of its exceeding sinfulness. 
We can have no adequate conception of sin 
apart from its penalty. Your legislature 
might speak as much against crime as they 
could, but if they attach a less penalty to 
murder than to theft, everybody would be sure 
that they intended to declare that theft was a 
higher crime than murder. So if God, in 
action, declares that the Son of God must 
bear the penalty of sin before it could be 
expiated, by that action he gives us the highest 
conceivable manifestation of the exceeding 
sinfulness of sin. Higher than if hell could be 
uncovered, and we should hear the wail of lost 
spirits, and behold the smoke of their torment 
ascending. Justice is satisfied, the welfare of 
the universe secured, and yet the sinner may 
escape. 

It was benevolence that moved the God-man 
to this work. Who will say that it was wrong 
in him to undertake it, or wrong in the Father 
to permit him to do so? As benevolence de- 
manded the execution of the penalty, so 
benevolence moved him to satisfy the law by 
suffering the penalty. 

We may say, justice is a straight line extend- 
ing interminably. It is not like love, consti- 
tuting the sum of the divine nature. Above 
the line of justice there is sufficient margin 
for the play of benevolence. You owe a man 



GOD RECONCILED. 121 

one hundred dollars. You pay him. Justice 
demands that. When that is done, justice, 
in the premises, is satisfied. But suppose, after 
you have paid him, you find him sick and in 
poverty, with no means to buy bread or employ 
a physician, you do all this for him and in other 
ways minister to his necessities. This is be- 
nevolence; and, of course, is costly to you. 
Benevolence is always a costly commodity. 
In this instance you sacrifice your ease, time 
and money. But you do it voluntarily. Who 
will say that it is unjust to yourself, and, there- 
fore, you must not be permitted to make the 
sacrifice? This is the objection in kind that 
says: "It is unjust to allow Christ volunta- 
rily, to make a sacrifice of himself for poor lost 
sinners." The fact is, this infidel objection, if 
allowed, would rule benevolence out of the 
universe. 

For further illustration, suppose a man 
should find a vessel, containing" a hundred pas- 
sengers, wrecked upon the sea. The wreck 
may have been caused by their own fault. 
But they are all drowning. This man can 
rescue them all, but only by the loss of his own 
life. What shall he do? They have, in jus- 
tice, no claim upon him. But in the goodness 
of his heart he determines to give his life for 
them, to rescue them. He does so. Who 
will undertake to say that he ought not to have 
done it? Surely, the men rescued by his sac- 
rifice will not make such a charge! No: they 



122 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

will be grateful. And they will express their 
gratitude by building a monument to his 
memory. There will be no man in history so 
highly honored by the hundred as this man 
who voluntarily laid down his life for them. 
You need not mention any other man, living 
or dead, that could rival this man, in the love 
and honor of this hundred rescued men. Thus 
Christ has rescued us poor sinners. But where 
is our gratitude? Where is the monument we 
have erected to him? Surely, we should build 
on the plain of our hearts a monument to him 
that should rise above and outshine the stars. 

"O for this love let rocks and hills 
Their lasting silence break! 
And all harmonious human tongues 
The Saviour's praises speak. 

"Angels, assist our mighty joys, 
Strike all your harps of gold; 
But when you raise your highest notes, 
His love can ne'er be told!" 

But suppose this benevolent man can rescue 
the hundred with the assurance that though 
he must drown yet in a few hours he would be 
resuscitated, and live again with greatly in- 
creased power to do good, not only to the 
rescued men, but to all creatures. This makes 
the case perfectly analogous to the sacrifice of 
Christ. He made the sacrifice in full view of 
the fact that he would soon resume his life. 
He says: "I have power to lay it down and I 
have power to take it again." Voluntarily and 



GOD RECONCILED. 123 

temporarily he lays down his life that he may 
purchase eternal salvation for the world. 

Here is suffering- without a parallel in the 
history of the universe; but here, also, is wis- 
dom, high, clear, and more beautiful than 
aught else beneath or above the azure heavens. 
Here is glory, the very outskirts of which daz- 
zle our eyes. Here also is love, overflowing 
the banks of Heaven and filling our world with 
glad tidings. All we can say is "God so loved 
the world!" in this style; after this fashion; or, 
"He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for 
ours only, but for the sins of the whole world/' 
And now, friendly reader, if there is any grati- 
tude in our hearts, we must get on our knees, 
every one of us redeemed by the Son of God, 
and shout with the angels on Advent day: 
"Glory to God in the highest." 

OBJECTION. 

To the foregoing the following objection 
has been made, to wit: "If Christ substituted 
himself for the sinner, in such wise as to pay 
the penalty in his stead, the sinner must be 
relieved from all obligation to obedience; for 
it could not be just that the penalty should be 
twice demanded." The objection proceeds 
upon an entire misconception of his redeeming 
work. It goes upon the assumption that if 
Christ bought us we might henceforth live at 
random, whereas the Scripture asserts just the 
contrary. When by disobedience we had 
forfeited the grace of creation, and placed our- 



124 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES 

selves under the penalty, he "redeemed us from 
the curse of the law, being- made a curse for 
us:" Gal. 3: 13. "Gave himself a ransom for 
all:" I. Tim. 2: 6. He bought us for himself, 
and by the grace of redemption imposed a 
new and additional reason for obedience. 
Hence, it is written again: "Ye are not your 
own, for ye are bought with a price: therefore 
glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, 
which are God's:" I. Cor. 6: 20. So we see 
that Paul anticipates this objection; or, at any 
rate, so answers it as to put it out of the way. 



RECONCILIATION OF MAN. 125 

XL 

RECONCILIATION OF MAN. 

In the last chapter we saw that by the death 
of Christ, in our stead, or through the vicarious 
sacrifice of Christ, God was propitiated and 
reconciled to man. Why then, it may be 
asked, is not the world saved? The difficulty 
is that man is not reconciled to God. When 
two parties are at variance, it is not enough 
that one party should be reconciled. If there 
is to be peace, both parties must be reconciled. 

When two parties are at variance, it is much 
easier to reconcile the party that has suffered 
the wrong, than it is to reconcile the party that 
has done the wrong. We have seen this fact 
exemplified in all sorts of difficulties, personal, 
family, neighborhood, church and national. 
The fact is so well settled, in mind, that when 
we see a party obstinately refusing all efforts 
for reconciliation, we take it as strong pre- 
sumptive evidence that that party is in the 
wrong. But if a party is the recipient of 
favors at the time of doing the wrong, he is on 
that account even harder still to be reconciled. 
Now, in the controversy between God and 
man, both of these difficulties are in the way. 
Man is the wrongdoer and therefore is the 
more difficult to reconcile. But he did the 
wrong and continues to do the wrong, while 



126 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

the recipient of divine favors, hence, he is 
harder still to be reconciled. The trouble is 
all on man's part. Universalism is the more 
plausible because it holds to a half truth, when 
it represents that God is reconciled to the 
world. But it becomes a very great and 
dangerous error when it represents that it is not 
necessary to salvation that the world should 
be reconciled to God. On the contrary, we 
hold to the Scriptural and common sense 
doctrine that there can be no peace nor salva- 
tion until both parties are reconciled. 

This view finds a striking illustration in the 
old fable of Agricolaand the adder. Agricola 
found an adder benumbed by cold, and hav- 
ing compassion on it, placed it in his bosom 
until it was warmed into life. And then the 
adder, in no wise propitiated by the kindness, 
struck his poisonous fangs into the bosom of 
Agricola. Agricola was well disposed to the 
adder, but the difficulty was that the adder 
was not reconciled to Agricola. So God is 
reconciled to the world through Christ; the 
difficulty is that the world is not reconciled 
to God. The old serpent nature must be got- 
ten out of man, else he would strike at the very 
heart of God, should God take him to his 
bosom. Now, God being reconciled to us, he 
proposes that we become reconciled to him- 
self upon the simplest and easiest terms imag- 
inable. The condition is that we accept the 
mediation of Jesus Christ. Faith is the in- 
strument, the hand with which we take it. God 



RECONCILIATION OF MAN. 127 

reaches down the hand of reconciliation 
through Christ. Man reaches up his hand 
through Christ. And thus the hands are joined 
and clasped in Christ. The good disposition 
by which God would win us to this reconcilia- 
tion may be illustrated by an incident in the 
lives of two historic characters. Mr. Henry 
Clay and Mr. John Randolph, of Roanoke, 
met to settle a difficulty, according to the bar- 
barous custom of the duel. At the word, Mr. 
Randolph fired at Mr. Clay, while Mr. Clay 
reserved his fire, and afterwards raised his pis- 
tol and shot into the air. By that token Mr. 
Randolph perceived that Mr. Clay did not 
wish to harm him, and immediately throwing 
away the murderous weapon, he exclaimed: 
"I would not after that harm you for all the 
world!" at the same time approaching Mr. 
Clay with open arms. That manifestation of 
reconciliation on Mr. Clay's part won the heart 
of Mr. Randolph unto, reconciliation. There 
must be much greater enmity in our hearts to 
God, that the more wonderful manifestation 
of reconciliation on God's part fails to win us. 
Faith is the one sole condition of reconcilia- 
tion. But it will be well to take along with 
this true and wholesome doctrine the fact that 
repentance is a condition of faith. We can- 
not believe, cannot accept Christ as a pardon- 
ing God and Saviour until we have repented. 
This bitter work must follow conviction and 
precedes saving faith. "Except 1 ye repent 

1 See next chapter. 



128 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

ye shall all likewise perish." This work be- 
gins when we see and feel our lost condition. 

God has deposited in the church, and com- 
mitted to her the ministries of this reconcilia- 
tion. He assures us that one purpose of the 
sacrament of the supper is to "show forth his 
death until his coming; again." Every com- 
municant thus becomes a minister of recon- 
ciliation; a witness to the power of Christ's 
death to reconcile God and man. So the 
sacrament of baptism as an emblem of the 
purifying power of the Spirit, witnesseth that 
in Christ there is reconciliation for men. And 
the whole body of believers, in their lives and 
conversation, is the voice of the Bride crying: 
"Come" and take the "Water of Life." 

But there are false witnesses among church 
members! Yes. But the testimony of false 
witnesses cannot invalidate the testimony of 
true witnesses. And yet, that is what we 
assume when we refuse to accept the testi- 
mony of other witnesses that cannot be 
impeached. It is as if men should refuse all 
money because there is counterfeit coin in cir- 
culation. When men wish to invalidate the 
testimony of the church they do not take up 
the testimony and sift it as sensible, unpreju- 
diced men should do, but they pick out the 
bad and make up their verdict from that. No 
fair-minded juror ever proceeds in that way. 
He lets the impeached testimony go for noth- 
ing and turns to the unimpeached testimony 
to see if there is enough of that sort to deter- 



RECONCILIATION OF MAN. 129 

mine the cause. And if he does so in this 
case he will find the church to be the salt of 
the earth, and the light of the world. 

Moreover, God sent to the Jews thirty-nine 
letters at different times, and by various per- 
sons, extending- over a period of fifteen hun- 
dred years, announcing to them that Christ 
himself was coming on this ministry of recon- 
ciliation. This, we should think, was enough 
to overcome their enmity, and prepare them 
to accept the doctrine. Christ thought this 
sufficient. Hence he says, in the parable or 
history of the rich man and Lazarus: 'They 
have Moses and the prophets, if they hear not 
them neither would they be persuaded though 
one rose from the dead." These thirty-nine 
letters bearing the promise that Christ should 
come, he has also sent to us; and he has added 
to them twenty-seven other letters declaring 
by many infallible proofs that Christ has 
come. Sixty-six letters in all, testifying to us 
that God is reconciled to us through the 
mediation of Christ, and begging us to be 
reconciled to him. Surely that is enough. 

But in addition to all this he has called and 
sent with commission broad as the world, an 
order of men that are instructed, by him, to 
cry as they go: "We are ambassadors for 
Christ, ... we pray you in Christ's stead, 
be ye reconciled to God." 

And with all these ministers he has sent the 
Holy Spirit, with the sanction and united power 
of the Godhead to give them success. What 



130 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

more could he do? Is it conceivable that he 
could do more? He himself asks: "What 
more could I do?" 

Now, suppose you had a difficulty with a 
man. He was in the wrong" from beginning 
to end, confessedly in the wrong; yet you, the 
injured party, make great and marvelous sac- 
rifices, in order to reconciliation. And then in 
various ways communicate to him that you are 
well disposed towards him and desire peace. 
You send him sixty-six letters at various times 
and by divers parties begging him to be recon- 
ciled. And then year by year, week by week, 
you dispatch various friendly messengers 
offering him reconciliation and even begging" 
him to be reconciled. 

You say that is not a supposable case, for 
no one ever did so much for reconciliation. 
That is true, no one but God ever did so much; 
ever made such condescending and persistent 
efforts for peace. But if you can make the 
amazing supposition that you had done all 
this and your enemy should still stand off in 
continued persistent hostility, what would you 
do? You would consider it beneath your 
dignity to continue sueing for peace. Yet, the 
great God of Heaven and earth, against whom 
we have sinned and are continuing to sin, has 
been making and repeating and re-repeating 
this offer all through the period of our lives. 
Rejected again and again, rejected every day, 
every hour, he is making it again at this 
hour. Permit an ambassador for him to make 



RECONCILIATION OF MAN. 131 

the offer once more. If you still refuse, per- 
mit one question. In view of all the facts and 
issues involved, do you know any sin that can 
match the sin of persistently refusing to be 
reconciled to God? 

God is not going to condemn any man for 
Adam's sin; is not going to condemn him so 
much for his own sin, as for the persistent re- 
jection of the offer of reconciliation. "He that 
believeth not shall be damned ;" yea, "He is 
condemned already, because he hath not be- 
lieved in the name of the only begotten Son 
of God." It seems that all fair-minded men, 
even on this side the Judgment, ought to see, 
and agree to say that the persistent refusal to 
be reconciled to God must and ought to issue 
in condemnation. 

But O, amazing mercy! God will not let 
him go yet. "If, when we were enemies, we 
were reconciled to God by the death of his 
Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be 
saved by his life:" Rom. 5:10. The argument 
of the apostle here is that if, while we were 
enemies, we were reconciled to God by his 
death, we have much stronger reason to con- 
clude that since this reconciliation has been 
effected we shall be saved by the living Christ, 
God, in the sublime onliness of his ineffable 
holiness, is inapproachable, even to the white- 
robed angels. How much more to the fallen 
and sinful? But by the incarnation and death 
of his Son he humbled himself down into lov- 
ing contact and communion with his enemies, 



132 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

that he might win them unto reconciliation. 
Now, having" bestowed his richest and best 
gift upon us while we were enemies, "shall he 
not with him also freely give us all things?" 
If I believe he died for me while I was ""with- 
out strength," while I was "ungodly," while I 
was "a sinner," even while I was an "enemy," 
then I can believe anything that God prom- 
ises, for nothing can be so wonderful as this. 
Nothing that God ever did, or is likely to do, 
could go beyond this; could even equal this. 
O, if we could rise to the height of this great ar- 
gument, how our hearts would glow with lov- 
ing gratitude, more acceptable to God than, 

"Arabia sacrificed, 
And all her spicy mountains in a flame." 

Christ was crucified, dead and buried. This 
is one article of the creed. We believe it. 
But it is just as essential that we believe he 
revived, arose and ascended, and that he lives 
forever. We glory in a living Saviour. If 
we could satisfy you that he is now in Jerusa- 
lem waiting to receive your homage, and as 
ready to bless men as he was in the days of 
his personal ministry, you would immediately 
go on a pilgrimage to that city; with joyful 
alacrity you would hasten to pour your pray- 
ers into his compassionate ears. But there is 
no need of such pilgrimage. He is here to-day 
and every day in the same power with which 
he rebuked the elements on stormy Galilee, 
and the winds folded their wings and lay down 



RECONCILIATION OF MAN. 133 

at his feet. He is here to-day in the same power 
and tenderness as when he wept with the be- 
reaved sisters at Bethany, and called their dead 
brother back to life. He is here in the assem- 
bly of his saints; where two or three are 
gathered together in his name. He, to this 
day consciously verifies his promise to the 
faithful ministry: "Lo, I am with you alway, 
even unto the end of the world." He is here 
in the fellowship of the Spirit, seeking that he 
may save the lost. We cannot see how those 
who reject his divinity can believe in his power 
to save. Take away his divinity and you take 
him out of the hearts of men and, indeed, out 
of the world. He may be in heaven, but we 
know not where heaven is, and if we did 
know the place of his local residence, we could 
not reach him there in this life. But O, we 
need him now, must find him now, rather, must 
be found of him now, or be lost! It is a blessed 
gospel therefore that announces to us a present, 
because omnipresent, Saviour; a present living 
Saviour, moving in the might of the united 
Godhead, and looking with eyes of mercy that 
he may find and save poor lost sinners. 

He is seeking through the agency of the 
Spirit. He never seeks apart from that 
agency. If he seeks through the church it is 
through the Spirit-pervaded church. Any 
other church, however furnished with gorgeous 
ritual, or other means to administer to aesthetic 
taste or culture, is but sounding brass or a 
tinkling cymbal. He seeks through a living 



134 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

ministry; but through a ministry, pervaded by 
the Spirit; any other ministry, however learned 
or eloquent, is but the wolf in sheep's cloth- 
ing tearing and devouring the flock, rather 
than an instrument to seek and save the lost. 
He seeks by individual effort and influence, 
but if this personal effort and influence have 
not mingled with it the grace of the Spirit, he 
may make proselytes, but make them the chil- 
dren of hell rather than disciples of Christ. 
When we come to the last analysis, we find 
that he seeks only through the agency of the 
Spirit. Even his own ministry, if divorced from 
the Spirit, would have accomplished little or 
nothing; for even "He through the Holy Ghost 
had given commandments unto the apostles:" 
Acts, i :2. The scribes and Pharisees beheld 
him with the natural eye. But he was then as 
now savingly seen only by the eye of faith, 
which faith comes as the gift of God through 
the Spirit; for no one can say that "Jesus is 
the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost." Each per- 
sonality has his appropriate work in our salva- 
tion. The Father forgives sins, Jesus Christ 
made an atonement for sin, and is our High 
Priest to present his atoning sacrifice and plead 
our cause with the Father, while the Spirit, 
proceeding from the Father and the Son, is 
God's advocate to us. The Spirit is God's 
advocate to us, and all moral fitness, all our 
righteousness is wrought in us by his immed- 
iate agency. The Son intercedes for us in 
Heaven, and the Spirit intercedes with us 



RECONCILIATION OF MAN. 135 

on earth. Hereby we have the glorious work 
of the living- Christ. Thus are we saved by his 
life. 

"He ever liveth to make intercession for 
us." We have sinned. As our advocate, in 
Heaven, he shows his bleeding hands and 
points to his pierced side; shows the redeeming 
work that he has done, as the gracious reason 
of our pardon. We are tempted; he would 
not have us tempted above our ability; but he 
knows that in our impotency we need large 
supplies of grace; and it is vouchsafed to us 
in his merit, through his intercessory prayers. 
Thus he gets between us and the penalty of 
the law by his gracious death, and also be- 
tween us and our impotency by his intercessory 
prayers. 

The Spirit proceeding from the Father and 
the Son becomes God's advocate to us. 
"Paracletos is used by the classic writers, and 
especially by the orators in the sense of Advo- 
catus" Stier, in Words of the Lord Jesus. This 
word is not found in the Septuagent. By 
this it has been thought that the personality 
of the Spirit is not so fully pronounced in the 
Old Testament. The fact is, the word occurs 
only in the writings of John; once in the 
Epistle and three times in the Gospel. In the 
Epistle, which may be regarded as explana- 
tory of the Gospel, it is rendered "Advocate." 
So we think it ought to be rendered in the 
Gospel, where the Spirit is denominated our 
u Paracletos y — Advocate. 



136 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

The first business of an advocate is to show 
his client the true state of his cause; if his 
cause be bad, if he has no valid plea, his best 
course would be to put himself on the mercy 
of the court. Especially would this be so if 
there was any provision for the extension of 
mercy in such cases. Now, this is precisely 
our condition. We have violated the law, 
and every plea that we could put in would but 
aggravate our condemnation. Our Advocate, 
in kindness makes to us a full, fair and candid 
statement of the case. Thus he convinces us 
of sin, of righteousness and of judgment. We 
know you will now and then find a man ready 
to assert that he was never convinced of sin. 
But this man would deceive us, perhaps he 
has succeeded even in deceiving himself; for 
the light that lighteneth every man has come 
into the world. When you find one in the 
form of man who has no selfhood, no soul, 
then, but not until then, will you find one who 
never, during his life, has been convicted of 
sin. The Spirit, as God's advocate to us, does 
his work well and faithfully. 

The second business of an advocate is to 
make manifest his client's remedy, if there be 
any. This the Spirit does by pointing us to 
Christ. He declares to us that here is our 
hope. It is easy to see that we need an ad- 
vocate with the Father. But is it not wonder- 
ful that Christ needs an advocate to us? It 
would seem to be enough that Christ by his 
death should purchase grace, even mercy for 



RECONCILIATION OF MAN. 137 

us. But since this is not enough to subdue 
our stubborn, rebellious hearts, he must send 
the Spirit as his advocate to us. This Advo- 
cate presents Christ to us, with all that he has 
done and suffered for us; presents him in all 
his offices; takes of all his lovely things and 
shows them to us, that we may be induced to 
admire and accept him. The angels must be 
amazed at the immensity of the work that has 
been done to reconcile God and man. 



138 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

XII. 

REPENTANCE. 

After all that has been written and spoken 
about repentance, there seems to be, with most 
people, but little well-defined understanding of 
the doctrine. 

It is not conviction for sin. Conviction is 
not, as has been taught by many, even an ele- 
ment of repentance. Repentance is man's 
work. Hence Christ preached, "Repent ye," 
"Except ye repent." But conviction is God's 
work, the work of the Holy Ghost. "When 
he is come, he will reprove [convict] the 
world of sin:" John 16:8. It seems strange 
that so many of our writers should have mixed 
conviction and repentance. 

When a man is convicted for sin he sees, in 
part, the sinfulness of his heart and life. He 
sees that, however he may have boasted of na- 
tive or acquired goodness, yet "his righteous- 
ness is all as filthy rags." The best things 
that he has ever done need cleansing. He sees 
a whole hell of iniquity lying, black and de- 
vouring, in his innermost nature. He feels 
that he deserves eternal damnation for what 
he has done, for what he has not done, and for 
what he is. It is this view of his "exceeding 
sinfulness" that produces that "fear of the 
Lord" which is the "beeinninof of wisdom:" 



REPENTANCE. 139 

Prov. 9:10. The sinner loves sin, but does 
not love God; can not understand nor appreci- 
ate spiritual thing's; would not appreciate a 
spiritual heaven were it thrust upon him. Mr. 
Wesley thought there might be a few, in a 
great number, that begin a religious life from 
the love of God. But the concession is not 
scriptural. The Scriptures hold that "the car- 
nal mind is enmity against God." How can 
the "carnal mind" begin a religious life from 
love? It is an impossibility. You may 
charge that fear is a low, base motive. Be it 
so. Yet the sinner is so low and base, and 
withal loves his sins so ardently, that you can- 
not, at first, reach him with any higher motive. 
After he sees and feels, as he must, that he 
deserves to be damned, he may begin to see 
and appreciate what God has done for him. 
He sees that Christ died for him while he was 
an enemy. He sees, also, that for the atoning" 
merit of his Son, God has borne with him, even 
with the sin of his ingratitude. Thus the g'ood- 
ness of God comes in as an attractive force, 
and being added to the driving force of fear, 
begins to "lead him to repentance." Hence 
the exhortation reads on this wise: "Repent 
ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." In 
other words: "Repent, for God is about to 
proclaim mercy, the pardon of sin, salvation 
through the gospel." So it is that the sinner at 
first, turns from sin because it exposes him to 
an eternal hell, but comes at last to turn away 
from it because of its offensiveness to God. 



140 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

We may turn from sin because of the hell 
there is in it, and so we ought, and must. But 
that is not sufficient. We have not reached 
evangelical repentance. A London physician 
tells of two thousand who professed to repent, 
on the bed of death, as they supposed. But re- 
covering" from sickness, all but two went back 
into sin. The trouble was they were only 
moved by the fear of punishment. 

The word metanoia means simply a change 
of mind. And it is significant that this is the 
word always used in the New Testament for 
repentance. When we fear hell above all fear, 
and when we can say the greatest of all sorrow 
is that we have offended the God that made 
and redeemed us, then we begin to wonder 
at the divine patience toward us, so that 
we are yet out of the hell that we deserve; and 
then begin to turn to God in gratitude; this is 
"repentance towards God." And there is no 
acceptable repentance on any lower plane than 
this. Sorrow, even godly sorrow, is no part of 
repentance. It is a prerequisite and condition 
of repentance. So that the Apostle Paul puts 
it: "Sorrow to repentance," "Godly sorrow 
worketh repentance." When godly sorrow 
gets intense enough to cause us to turn from 
sin, then, but not before, have we repented. 

It takes two kinds of sorrow to work in us 
repentance unto life. i. A sorrow wrought in 
us by the fear of hell. This sorrow is of a piece 
with the sorrow for having damaged ourselves, 
in this life by our sins. For instance, the 



REPENTANCE. 141 

drunkard may be sorry for having- degraded 
himself and beggared his family; and he may 
quit getting drunk for these reasons. And he 
ought. But this repentance would not be the 
repentance that would bring him to faith. 
This kind is but a selfish work. It 4S what 
Paul calls the repentance unto death. If he 
stops at such sorrow, though it produce re- 
pentance or turning-, it is but the repentance of 
the world that worketh death. A repentance 
that has only the fear of punishment in it is 
very defective. Yet such, no doubt, are most 
of the deathbed repentances. 2. A repent- 
ance continued and confirmed, in us, by the 
gracious manifestations of God in our behalf. 
Thus the "Goodness of God leadeth thee to 
repentance." 

Permit us to ring the chang-es on the sig- 
nification of repentance. It means, as we have 
said, a change of mind. And, by consequence, 
a change of life. Let us g-et the idea in our 
minds that no matter what may be the quality, 
complexion, and intensity of our sorrow, it is 
of no avail, unless it is such sorrow for having 
offended God as will cause us to quit sin. A 
repentance that does not accomplish this is a 
solecism, a sheer, unmitigated absurdity; for it 
is sin, and nothing but sin, that separates us 
from God. "Your iniquities have separated be- 
tween you and yourGod." Take away sin and 
the parties would come together, just as the 
waters of the Gulf and the Atlantic would come 



142 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

together, if you take out the peninsula of 
Florida. 

Here is a man who has been in the habit of 
getting" drunk. He professes to repent and 
joins the church. After a while he gets drunk 
again. That is a suspicious circumstance. 
But he comes forward and confesses, and is 
very sorry. If he is really a penitent he will 
be eager to confess. If he has to be dragged 
forward to confession, you may know by that 
token that he is not penitent; for confession is 
a fruit of repentance. But he professes to be 
repentant and is forgiven, by the church, and 
yet after a while is drunk again. The proba- 
bilities are strong that this man's religion is 
vain, not being rooted in repentance; not hav- 
ing in him the first practical grace of Chris- 
tianity — the grace of being sorry enough for sin 
to quit it. There is grace enough in heaven, 
for us, to enable us to quit habitual sin, or else 
our religion is a failure. He was called Jesus 
"for he shall save his people from their sins." 

But may not a man quit sin without evangel- 
ical repentance? No. He may quit swearing 
or getting drunk. But he is still a sinner, 
though outwardly more decent. He may put 
on good-looking clothes, that shall cover a 
filthy person; he may paint the sepulcher, but 
it is as full of corruption as before. If the 
measles strikes in, the sickness is the worse for 
it. Hence the apostle calls such repentance 
"a repentance unto death." The vainest thing 
any man ever attempted is to build a religious 



REPENTANCE 143 

life without laying the foundation in "repent- 
ance towards God" — quitting sin because of 
the hell there is in it, and also for the goodness 
of God toward him. 

When a man gets sorry enough to quit sin, 
he cries: "O! that I had never sinned, oh! that 
the wrong were undone; or, that I could make 
restitution for it!" But it cannot be undone. 
It has gone into history. The French Con- 
vention could decree to break open the archives 
and destroy the records of their evil deeds, but 
they could not recall the evil deeds. Sin can- 
not be undone. And wherein we are unable 
to undo, Christ has made atonement for us, 
and after we have repented we are able to 
accept that atonement, by the assistance of 
grace, and thus receive pardon. But Christ 
does not propose that we shall receive pardon 
for what we can undo, so long as we refuse to 
undo. This is squarely put, Ezekiel, 33:14-15: 
"When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt 
surely die; if he turn from his sin [repent] 
. . • restore the pledge, give again that he 
had robbed ... he shall surely live." 
Here the principle of restitution is laid down, 
as a necessary fruit of repentance. If a man 
has done any damage to his neighbor, in any 
way, he must, as far as he can, make restitu- 
tion. If he has slandered his neighbor, he 
must make his confession go as far as the 
slander has gone, so as to undo as much of 
the evil consequences as possible. If he has 
failed to pay his debts, he must, if possible, 



144 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

pay them. He cannot appropriate other peo- 
ple's property to himself, and expect God to 
have mercy on his selfish, dishonest soul. If 
he cannot restore, he must confess. 

A man at cards won another man's farm 
and merchandise. The man's wife made such 
an ado about it that he gave up the farm, but 
held on to the merchandise. He has the pro- 
ceeds of it in his hands now. A few years 
ago he professed religion and joined the 
church. It seems that "wayfaring men, though 
fools," must see that this man's repentance is 
vain. Just think of a man's being pardoned 
and going to heaven with stolen property in 
his hand. He must pay back the money that 
he won from his neighbor, as well as any other 
gotten without due compensation. Ill-gotten 
gain must be restored to the rightful owner or 
there cannot be the first step taken in the way 
to the kingdom of heaven. Unless our re- 
pentance has in it the grace and fruit of resti- 
tution, our hope is shipwrecked before we 
weigh anchor and start on our voyage to the 
celestial city. 

We have heard Bishop McTyeire relate the 
following incident: There was a rich man in 
Tennessee, who gave a poor local preacher 
two fifty-dollar bills to deposit for him in the 
bank. For some cause he did not make the 
deposit, and on his return gave back the bills 
that he had received. The poor preacher's 
reputation was ruined by a report circulated 
by this rich, influential man that he had stolen 



REPENTANCE. 145 

one of the bills. So it went for years. The 
preacher's reputation gone, and with it, the 
power to do good. The facts were that the 
rich man had put the bills in his vest pocket 
and one of them had slipped through the 
lining. He discovered this after he had cir- 
culated the report, but was too proud to 
confess that he had been hasty in circulating 
a slander, and so the wrong was continued. 
By and by the meteoric shower of 1833 came 
on, and the rich, influential sinner thought it 
was the time of Judgment; so he ran, in haste 
to make confession of the wrong to his slan- 
dered brother. If it had been the Judgment, 
we do not think he could have obtained par- 
don; for there shall come a time when it will 
be said: "He which is filthy, let him be filthy 
still." 

Another striking instance we may relate. 
There was a man of good reputation, a 
steward of the church, and useful in this office. 
Being stricken with disease, he became trou- 
bled about his religious condition. He prayed 
and besought the Lord again and again for 
the assurance of pardon, but could obtain no 
peace. He sent for his pastor, and his pastor 
talked and prayed, but the brother could get 
no relief. Finally, he came to the confession 
that, years before, he had wronged his partner 
in business out of a sum that would now beg- 
gar his family to restore. But he made the 
confession and fixed up the papers necessary 
to convey the stolen property back to the 



146 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

rightful owner. After doing- this he attained 
to conscious peace. God may pardon a man 
who cannot make restitution for wrongs done 
to his neighbor, substituting and accepting the 
suffering of Christ for his sin. But he never 
will pardon any wrong that the man might 
undo, or make restitution for, unless he does 
it. He must bring forth this fruit of repent- 
ance. If God should pardon him, as he might, 
on the promise of restitution, and he should 
fail to make it, God would, no doubt, reverse 
or recall his pardon. Zacchaeus was probably 
pardoned when he "came down, and received 
him [Jesus] joyfully." But we are assured that 
his repentance is of the genuine stamp, when 
he says: "If I have taken anything from any 
man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold 1" 

Repentance is a very, very bitter work. 
There is the mingled, the double bitterness of 
"wormwood and gall" in the sorrow that leads 
up to it. Hence so many desire to avoid it, 
and so many preachers would "heal slightly." 
But let the utterance of Christ ring out upon 
the ear of all states and conditions of men: 
"Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." 

Repentance is a condition precedent of faith. 
Repentance brings us to the faith that accepts 
Christ as a "pardoning God" and a Saviour. 
And then, oh, the peace! oh, the joy! oh, the 
heaven there is in it! The Christian religion 
has its inception in the lowest part of the valley 
of humility, right on the frightful edge of the 
abyss of despair (those who have passed this 



REPENTANCE. 147 

way will understand), and forces its way, not 
without divine assistance, through thorns and 
rugged ascents until it reaches the heights 
where the day is breaking; and taking wing it 
may dwell above the clouds and storms, its 
"life hid with Christ in God." 

We must have conviction for sin — God's 
work — and also repentance — man's work. 

We must have sorrow for sin, beginning in 
the fear of hell, and working up until we are 
sorry because sin is offensive to God. This 
worketh the "repentance . . . [that need- 
eth] not to be repented of." 

Repentance is a change of mind; but this 
change must bear fruit. In actual life we 
must turn from sin. We must confess sin, 
and make restitution wherever restitution is 
possible. 

If restitution is impossible — amazing grace 
—we may turn to the substituted offering of 
Christ, and God will accept this for what we 
would, but cannot do. Of course, while we 
undo wrong, as far as we can, we must re- 
member that the sin of all sorts of wrong- 
doing is all against God, and can never be 
undone. When David had committed great 
wrong against individuals and against society, 
he says: "Against thee, thee only, have I 
sinned." We must, if we can, undo the wrong 
to our neighbor; but we can never undo the 
sin against God. For that we must rely on 
the atonement of Christ. And this brings us 
to faith, the condition of pardon. 



148 DOCTBINES FOR THE TIMES. 



XIII. 

SANCTIFICATION. 

The word sanctification means set apart for 
a religious purpose, or consecration. 'To 
hallow, to make sacred:" Liddell & Scott. 

There seems no place in Scripture where 
this rendering- would do violence to the text, 
therefore, sanctification is not to be sought as 
an end, but as a means. The means can 
remain unchanged, while the ends sought may- 
be various. Thus sanctification may be sought 
for the purpose of purification, or as a prepara- 
tion for office or service. 

The word occurs first in Gen. 2:3: "And 
God blessed the seventh day and sanctified 
it." That is, set it apart for rest and worship. 
"Sanctify unto me all the firstborn ... it 
is mine:" Ex. 13:2. That is, set the firstborn 
apart from the others for the Lord's use. 
"Sanctify the altar and it shall be an altar 
most holy." Which means, of course, set apart 
or consecrated to the use of the Lord, and 
that when thus set apart, it was to be used only 
for holy purposes. This is evident, for we 
read: "Sanctify the most holy things:" 
I. Chron. 23:13. Which means, keep for the 
Lord's use those things already set apart for 
that purpose. 



8ANCTIFICATI0N. 149 

The word has the same meaning in the New 
Testament, though as we might expect, rising 
to a higher plane. "It is the altar that sancti- 
fieth the gift." It was yours for ordinary pur- 
poses until placed upon the altar, then it be- 
comes consecrated to the use of the Lord only. 
Food is set apart or "sanctified by the word 
of God and prayer:" I. Tim. 4:5. Christ 
used the term in its ordinary signification con- 
cerning himself. He says: "Whom the Father 
hath sanctified, and sent into the world:" John 
10:36. Also: "For their sakes I sanctify my- 
self, that they also might be sanctified through 
the truth:" John 17:19. Now, we are com- 
pelled to admit that the Father sanctified 
Christ, and that he sanctified himself in the 
ordinary acceptation of the word; that is, he 
was set apart and consecrated himself for his 
official work. It cannot mean that he was 
purified by the Father, or that he purified him- 
self; for he was as pure in his manger cradle as 
on Ascension Day. But he says he sanctified 
himself as an example, "that they also might 
be sanctified through the truth." His, being 
consecration for service, theirs also must have 
been the same. 

He was set apart, sanctified for his official 
work, when John baptized him and the Spirit 
descended upon him; for until then he neither 
preached nor worked miracles. But now he 
declares: "He [the Spirit] hath anointed me 
to preach the gospel," and he also begins to 
do "many mighty works." 



150 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

He sanctified himself for the consummation 
of his redeeming- work when he said: "Not my 
will, but thine be done." 

The substantive word, sanctification, occurs 
five times in Scripture, all in the New Testa- 
ment, and has the same trend as its cognates. 
It is found twice in I. Thess. 4:3-4: 'This is 
the will of God, even your sanctification, that 
you should abstain from fornication. That 
every one of you should know how to possess 
his vessel in sanctification and honor." Here 
sanctification can mean only setting apart from 
fornication to the service of God. 

The word occurs again, I. Peter 1:2: "Elect 
according to the foreknowledge of God the 
Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, 
unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of 
Jesus Christ." Their election was through 
sanctification, and they were set apart or con- 
secrated by it unto "obedience and sprinkling 
of the blood of Jesus Christ." Moreover, it is 
evident from the context that these persons 
who are elected through sanctification have at- 
tained to no higher state than regeneration, for 
Peter continues to address them as "begotten," 
as "children," as "born again," as "newborn 
babes." Meanwhile he exhorts them to be 
holy, for God is holy. He says: "As newborn 
babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that 
ye may grow thereby; if so be ye have tasted 
that the Lord is gracious." I. Peter 2:2-3. We 
are here shut up to the conclusion that election, 
sanctification and regeneration are concomitant 



8ANCTIFICATI0N. 151 

blessings. Paul is in substantial agreement 
with Peter, hence he says: "Who shall lay 
anything to the charge of God's elect? It is 
God that justifieth:" Rom. 8:33. Now the re- 
generate man is justified and the justified man 
is elected and elected man is sanctified. Yea, 
it is through sanctification that he is elected. 

The next passage that we call attention to 
is II. Thess. 2:13-14. "God hath from the be- 
ginning chosen you to salvation through 
sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the 
truth; whereunto he called you by our 
gospel." Evidently the process was on this 
wise, namely: they were called, and, accepting 
the call, they were chosen. Not after they had 
lived some time in the experience of regene- 
ration, for that would contradict the text. 
"From the beginning," then, of their religious 
experience they were "chosen unto salvation 
through sanctification of the Spirit and belief 
of the truth. It is not to be questioned, therefore, 
that Paul, in harmony with Peter, teaches that 
sanctification inheres in or is concomitant 
with the new birth. 

We have just shown that in the usual accep- 
tation of the term, sanctification means conse- 
cration. But some hold that in addition to this, 
it sometimes means purity or holiness. Many 
who hold this view claim that the blood of 
Christ is a sanctifying agent, and that the blood 
is never used except as a cleansing agent. 

The Jews were forbidden to eat blood be- 
cause the blood is the life; hence, to shed blood 



152 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

was to take away life. "Whoso sheddeth 
man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." 
It is also written, "Without shedding of 
blood/' that is, taking life, there "is no remis- 
sion." Blood symbolizing death is a generic 
term. It is used as a detergent: "The blood 
of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all 
sin." It is used for redemption: "Purchased 
with his own blood:" Acts 20:28. Also for 
justification: "Justified by his blood:" Rom. 
5:9. It is also called the blood of the cove- 
nant: Ex. 24:8; Zech. 9:11; Heb. 10:29, 13:20. 
We find that the blood — death — is an agent of 
purification, redemption, justification, and the 
sealing agent of the covenant. 

But suppose there should be an instance or 
two where sanctification, interpreted without 
reference to its usual meaning, should appear 
to be synonymous with holiness; so we might 
say of faith that it is a purifying agent: "Puri- 
fying their hearts by faith:" Acts 15:9. Now, 
we know that faith does not purify, but simply 
brings the heart into a state where the Spirit 
can purify. So sanctification does not cleanse, 
but prepares for cleansing. 

Take another case: "Repent, and be bap- 
tized every one of you in the name of Jesus 
Christ for the remission of sins:" Acts 2:38. 
This, taken apart from other Scripture, would 
give us baptismal regeneration, as clearly as 
sanctification in any isolated passage could be 
rendered holiness. 



SANCTIFICATION. 158 

The general trend of Scripture should pour 
its light upon a passage before we give it a ren- 
dering. Probably no one will deny that the 
primary meaning of the word sanctification, 
and its general application in Scripture, is set 
apart for a religious purpose. But some have 
claimed that when we sanctify ourselves, it 
means consecration; but when God sanctifies 
us, it means cleansing: 'Tor," say they, "how 
can God consecrate ?" It is very easy to an- 
swer this question. God sanctified his Son, 
and sent him into the world without cleansing 
him: "Whom the Father hath sanctified, and 
sent into the world:" John 10:36. 

The primary meaning of sanctification, is set 
apart for a religious purpose — consecration. 
The tenor of Scripture sustains this rendering. 
Christuses it in this senseand no other. Then, 
surely, this must be the true meaning. 

It has not been our purpose in this chapter 
to discourage the pursuit of holiness, nor to 
dampen the ardor of anyone seeking a higher 
religious life. We have been seeking the truth 
which will free us from the confusion which 
has arisen because sanctification has been con- 
founded with perfection, or, perfect love. We 
sanctify ourselves, and God sanctifies us as a 
preparation for regeneration. Then, as new 
light comes, or new responsibilities, or privi- 
leges, this sanctifying work should go on. "Let 
us go on unto perfection." "Perfect love 
casteth out fear," and love is the "bond of per- 
fectness." 



154 DOCTRINES EOR THE TIMES. 

XIV. 

JUSTIFICATION. 

Justification, in the sense in which we now 
propose to discuss it, means simply the pardon 
of sin. In the economy of salvation there are 
three works that are wholly of God; namely: 
Conviction for sin, justification and regenera- 
tion; while repentance and faith are man's per- 
formances, by aid of divine grace. 

Repentance is a prerequisite or condition of 
justifying faith. Until a man repents he can- 
not believe unto righteousness. Hence, many 
have lived and died and gone to perdition who 
never had the grace of faith, or the power to 
believe unto righteousness. For grace re- 
sisted bars the communication of higher grace. 
This conviction resisted holds back the grace 
of repentance; repentance neglected, cuts off 
the grace of faith, and the nonexercise of 
faith stops the outflow of grace that would 
justify and regenerate. 

"A man is justified [pardoned] by faith 
without the deeds of the law:" Rom. 3:28. 
Again: "To him that worketh not, but be- 
lieveth on him that justifieth [pardoneth] the 
ungodly, his faith is counted for righteous- 
ness:" Rom. 4:5. Luther is fully vindicated, in 
Scripture for saying: "A man is justified by 
faith only." When Satan can no longer hold 



JUSTIFICATION. 155 

people to the opinion that it is good to con- 
tinue in sin, he retreats to this, his last ditch — 
that we can and must do something to achieve 
our own pardon; so that the last idea that a 
sinner gives up is that he must make himself 
better and more worthy to believe in Christ. 
Satan knows better than some of our teach- 
ers that, "If you tarry till you are better you 
will never come at all;" and, that if you at- 
tempt to work yourself into pardon, it will be 
an utter and eternal failure. Yet all churches 
as they get older fall more and more into this 
fatal error. 

Those that were in highest repute for piety, 
in our Lord's day, were "seeking," or "going 
about to establish their own righteousness." 
They expected to find pardon by fasting and 
almsgiving, and other works, and failed be- 
cause they "sought it not by faith, but as it 
were by the works of the law. For they stum- 
bled at that stumblingstone." So are they 
doing now. 

Luther tried, as he had been taught, to work 
his way into the favor of God. His climbing 
that winding stairway, on his bare knees, was 
but a part of the works that he did to find par- 
don. And he never would have found it had he 
not stopped going about to establish his own 
righteousness, and turned simply and only to 
Christ for it And thus was he qualified by 
actual experience to see strongly the teaching 
of Scripture, and to preach it, "by faith only." 



156 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

John and Charles Wesley, and George 
Whitefield, sought justification for years, "by 
the works of the law." During these years 
they lived so strictly as to excite ridicule and 
persecution everywhere, and yet they saved 
no souls, not even their own, by their abundant 
works. 

We propose to put all our people to work. 
This is right, but there must be the observance 
of wise caution. It is clear that any one is 
worth what he can do, and does; nothing more, 
nothing less. Indeed, do-nothing people are 
worth less than nothing. If the church be a 
vineyard, it will run to waste with lazy keep- 
ers. If the Christian profession be a warfare, 
it will win no victories without fighting. 

But we must remember and emphasize the 
fact that an unpardoned sinner cannot work 
himself into pardon; neither can he lead others, 
being blind himself. Put him in the pulpit and 
he will preach to attract people to himself 
rather than to Christ. Put him to lead a class 
and he can lead only so far as his own experi- 
ence goes. Put him to superintend or teach a 
Sunday school, and the blind leading the 
blind, both shall fall into the ditch. Put him 
in the choir, and he will sing to glorify himself, 
rather than to make melody in heart and voice 
to the glory of God. 

Let your pulpit men tarry for the enduement 
of power, and then send them out, and they may 
preach the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost 
sent down from heaven. Rather than send 



JUSTIFICATION. 157 

them out without this furnishing-, you had better 
let them stay at home and mind the stuff. If you 
put impenitent sinners to work in the church, 
you will but manufacture Pharisees. The place 
for an unpardoned sinner is at the altar of pen- 
itency. Put him there and keep him there 
until he is pardoned. You had better put un- 
tutored Africans in your schools to teach 
literature and science, than to put unpardoned 
sinners in the church to teach the way of sal- 
vation. Put them in the church to work and 
they will make it a "synagogue of Satan;" or, 
they will do as they did in Christ's day, make 
it "a den of thieves." If we would exercise the 
sense we were born with, we would understand 
that one fallen man cannot help up another. 
Scripture and common sense put that privilege 
on those, and those only "that are spiritual." 
O ye shepherds that oversee the flock, ye men 
that have the care of souls, do not allow peo- 
ple to delude themselves with the idea of the 
old Pharisees, that they can, by works, secure 
the forgiveness of sins! You may get unpar- 
doned people stirred to great activity. Like 
the scribes and Pharisees of old, they may 
"compass sea and land to make one proselyte," 
and when they have made him, make him "two- 
fold more the child of hell" than themselves. 
For a man to go out to work for the spiritual 
advancement of men and the glory of God 
without the requisite furnishing, is like the 
man who went to the forest to split rails with- 
out axe, or maul, or wedge. To put the doctor 



158 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

forward to practice physic before he learns the 
healing art would be to commission him to 
destroy rather than to save men's lives. In- 
deed, the quack is very much worse than no 
doctor. But every worker for soul healing-, 
whether in pulpit, choir, pew, or elsewhere, 
who is not healed himself, is but spreading the 
disease of sin wherever and whenever he comes 
in contact with others. 

Saul of Tarsus, stricken down on his way to 
Damascus, said: "Lord, what wilt thou have 
me to do?" Flippant people would answer: 
"Go straightway to work." Not so with the 
Great Teacher. He said: "Arise, and go 
into the city, and it shall be told thee." 
Before answering his question the Lord let him 
go fasting and praying, in sleepless penitency, 
for three days and nights. And when he was 
ready, sent Ananias to his help. If he had 
been sent to work before the "scales fell from 
his eyes," we would have had "the blind leading 
the blind." But let a man get the light for him- 
self , and then he can "walk in the light" and lead 
others; not before. This is in harmony with 
the great commission, "Go ye therefore, and 
teach all nations:" Matt. 28:19. But, "Tarry ye 
in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued 
[clothed] with power from on high:" Luke 
24:49. This seems too slow to impatient and 
self-confident people; but there is in it the 
highest wisdom. If your instruments be dull, 
the greatest speed is secured by waiting to 
sharpen them. 



JUSTIFICATION. 159 

We do not mean that we should wait in the 
nonuse of the means of grace, as the Anti- 
nomians counseled in the days of Wesley; but 
as David did. He says: "I waited patiently 
for the Lord ; and he inclined unto me, and heard 
my cry." We repeat, the Wesleys and White- 
fields labored more abundantly than others 
for ten years, and saved no souls; not even 
their own. But as soon as they were saved 
themselves, the wondrous work began. So it 
was with Dr. John Tauler, one of the greatest 
preachers of the fourteenth century; and so 
will it ever be. 

Faith is the instrument of pardon, only the 
instrument, and yet it is a fit instrument- 
Man's restoration is analogous to his fall by 
contrast; he fell by unbelief, he is raised by 
faith. 

Christ is the object of faith. A man may be- 
lieve in God, as the almighty, universal maker, 
as the dweller in immensities, as the habitant 
of eternities, and as the arbiter of all destinies; 
it is well, but not enough. The devils believe 
all this, and tremble, and are saved from athe- 
ism, but not from sin. Hence, Christ says : 
"Ye believe in God, believe also in me." But 
we may believe in Christ, in many respects, 
and yet fail of justification. 

We may believe in him as a historic person- 
age, just as we believe what is written about 
Caesar or Napoleon, and yet be no better than 
"heathens and publicans." 



160 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

We may believe in Christ as our exemplar, 
as our pattern, and strive to imitate him in 
moral goodness, and yet never attain to justi- 
fication. 

And we would say, just here, that it is pre- 
sumptuous for us to attempt to imitate Christ, 
in some respects. For instance, in his baptism. 
Christ was probably baptized with water, to 
induct him, ceremonially, into the office of a 
priest, that he might offer himself as a sacrifice 
for sin. If so, we see how presumptuous it is to 
think of following him in baptism. But be this 
as it can, yet it is certain that he was not bai - 
tized into his own name, to intimate that he 
was his own Saviour, and yet if we are not 
baptized into the name of Christ, to manifest 
our trust in him as our Saviour, we have not 
received Christian baptism. 

Nor are we to follow him in that forty-days' 
fast. Like the Irishman, we should not mind 
the privation of the Romish fast of forty days, 
on eggs and fish; but we think such a fast, in 
imitation of Christ, presumptuous. Christ, 
after his baptism, was "led up of the Spirit 
into the wilderness to be tempted of the Devil." 
This seems strange, but the difficulty disap- 
pears when we remember that Jesus was a fed- 
eral person. The first Adam had encountered 
Satan in the garden, and, by yielding to temp- 
tation, had turned the garden into a wilderness, 
and subjected himself and all his posterity to 
be led captive by the Devil. Christ, in entering 
on his redeeming work, must, first of all, over- 



JUSTIFICATION. 161 

come this enemy, so as to free humanity from 
the thraldom. Hence, he must encounter him, 
and put him to flight. This victory sent trem- 
bling and affright through all the realms of 
darkness, and inspired hope in the heart of 
humanity, as prophetic of the great victory to 
be won on Golgotha, which placed in his hands 
the keys of death and hell. At any rate, this 
was a great beginning of his redeeming work. 
It was before he had gathered disciples about 
him, that it might be seen, as in other redemp- 
tion work, that "he tread the winepress alone, 
and of the people there was none to help." It 
is presumption in us to play at imitating Christ 
i i this beginning of his redemption work. The 
folly and the sin of the lenten fast is almost as 
conspicuous to an intelligent, pious Christian, 
as the german that follows it. But we may 
strive to imitate Christ in all those respects 
where he is imitable, and ought to be imitated; 
and yet such regard for his work, such follow- 
ing of him, is not the faith that justifies. It 
may be but another form of seeking justifica- 
tion by works. 

We may believe in his personality; that he 
lived and spake as man had never done; that 
he is the chief among ten thousand, and alto- 
gether lovely. We may laud his personality 
as Rousseau did, as Edwin Arnold does, and 
even as the Scriptures do, making him the light 
of the world, and strive to walk in that light; 
it is all in vain; we cannot find pardon that 
way. We may even believe in his dual per- 



162 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

sonality ; that he is the equal of the first Adam, 
and that he is the "Almighty's Fellow;" all 
this, wemay and ought to believe, but justifica- 
tion cannot be predicated of such faith. 

Our faith must accept Christ, as he was 
first announced by John the Baptist, when he 
cried: "Behold the Lamb of God, which 
taketh away the sin of the world!" The faith 
that justifies us sees nothing- but Jesus Christ 
and him crucified; that Jesus Christ died for 
our sins. Thus it is that his mediatorial right- 
eousness is the only object of faith, and the 
meritorious cause of our justification or pardon. 
The penalty of sin was death; this bolt was let 
loose, but, instead of falling upon us, it fell 
upon that One that hung on the cross. Thus 
was it conducted away from you and me; from 
humanity. Jesus Christ died for our sins. 
He suffered the penalty for us. We accept him 
as having met the demands of the law in our 
stead. Thus it is by faith, that it might be by 
grace. If we could work out our pardon, we 
should claim it as a debt due us for work done. 
And we might shout, "Glory to ourselves, for 
we have worked out our own pardon." But 
when we reach forth the hand of faith, and 
take our pardon from Christ, we are but beg- 
gars receiving alms, and can say: "Glory to 
God for the gift, through the mediatorial right- 
eousness of Jesus Christ." Some say, "This 
contradicts James 2:14, et seq!' Paul, as we 
quoted him, is writing of the pardon or justifi- 
cation that came to Abraham over thirty years 



JUSTIFICATION. 163 

before he offered Isaac. James is speaking- of 
his offering- Isaac, thirty years or more after- 
wards, as the exponent of pardon. Hence 
he says, "Show me thy faith without thy 
works" — that is one true side of the question — 
"and I will show thee my faith by my works" — 
that is another side. Peter agrees to this when 
he says, "Add to your faith virtue," etc. And 
Paul puts that side of the question as strongly 
as either, when he writes of the faith that 
"obeyed," that "waxed valiant in fight," that 
"works by love." None of them deny that faith 
is the foundation, good works the super- 
structure; faith the producer, good works 
that which is produced; faith the tree, good 
works, the fruit. And the Great Teacher of 
them all says, "Make the tree good, and his 
fruit good;" that is, a man must be good 
in order to do good. So we have (i) a man 
pardoned by faith only; (2) faith producing, 
mingling with, and being manifested by good 
works; (3) we may say that he is justified — 
approved — by works only. In the Judgment, 
there may be no question raised as to faith. 
The question then will be as to what he has 
done. "Ye did it," or "ye did it not," shall then 
arbitrate all destinies. We are made to won- 
der how any one holding the tenor of Scrip- 
ture in mind could get into confusion as to the 
teaching of Paul and James. Yet, we suppose 
it was this misunderstanding that caused Mar- 
tin Luther to call the writing of James, an 
"Epistle of straw," and that has perplexed so 
many since. 



164 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 



XV. 

THE NEW BIRTH. 

The principal objection to the new birth, or 
regeneration, is its mystery. Men say they 
can believe nothing that they do not under- 
stand. Then they will believe nothing; for 
there is mystery in everything. Most people 
believe in their own existence, yet there are 
mysteries in themselves, at which philoso- 
phy and science have toiled, with poor result, 
through the ages. What is life? Who has 
told us, or can tell? What is mind? An imma- 
terial substance. But that is a mere negation; 
assumption that it is not material. Likely it 
is not a compound substance, yet metaphysi- 
cians speak of it as composed of intellect, sen- 
sibilities, and will. 

Do you eschew metaphysics because of its 
abstrusity, and turn to physics? Here we are 
confronted with difficulties just as great. We 
can tell that matter has certain qualities, but 
as to its essence we know as little as we do of 
mind. Man is a great wonder to himself. But 
if for this he denies his own existence he 
stultifies himself. So does a man stultify 
himself when he says, "I will not believe in 
the new birth because of mystery." The fact 
is, if a man assumes that he will believe noth- 



THE NEW BIRTH. 165 

ing that he does not understand, he abandons 
himself to universal skepticism. 

We shall gain something; by showing what 
the new birth is not. 

i. In the first place, it is not any training 
or educational process however good and 
desirable. You may give your child the very 
best home training, have him taught by the 
best teacher in the best Sunday school, then 
send him to the best denominational school, 
where the Bible is taught by an able faculty, 
and, after all this, send him to the best theo- 
logical school (he being diligent in the use of 
all these helps), yet may he be in the "gall of 
bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity." Sup- 
pose such culture, or any culture, had been 
what Jesus meant by the new birth, then when 
Nicodemus wondered and stumbled at it, he 
would have said: "All I mean by the new 
birth is that a man should have good and 
thorough religious culture." And Nicodemus 
would have received it, and so would all 
rationalists, to the end of the world. To as- 
sume such meaning is, in effect, to charge 
Jesus with poor capacity for teaching; when 
with a sentence of the very simplest explana- 
tion he might have had his doctrine accepted 
then and for all time by everybody. 

2. In the second place, it is not, as some 
have supposed, to break off from sin, and turn 
to a life of obedience. A distinguished evan- 
gelist says: "You are going on the wrong end 
of the road, and all you have to do is to turn 



166 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

round and travel towards the other end." 
Contrariwise the Great Teacher tells the sin- 
ner that he is in the wrong- road. He is now 
in the "broad way that leadeth to destruction." 
There is room enough in this "broad way" for 
the drunkard to stagger to and fro; room 
enough for all the crooked ways of all sinners. 
He must get out of this "broad way," and 
enter through the "straight gate" into the 
"narrow way" that leadeth unto life. Turning 
away from sin is necessary, but it is not the 
new birth, nor any part of it. If Christ had 
merely meant that we must quit sin and lead 
a better life, it would have been easy for him 
to have said so; and, as before said, Nico- 
demus, and all rationalists to the end of time, 
would have accepted it." 

It is so clear that "wayfaring men, though 
fools," need not err therein, that Jesus by the 
new birth did not mean any culture, however 
good, neither did he mean any reformation of 
conduct. This is so clear as to render any 
such supposition a bare and bold assumption. 

That Christ means to give the greatest pos- 
sible emphasis to the necessity of the new birth, 
or birth from above, is evident from the so- 
lemnity of the repeated utterances: "Verily, 
verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born 
again [or from above] he cannot see the 
kingdom of God;" and again, "Verily, verily, 
I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water 
and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the 
kingdom of God." This repeated "Verily, 



THE NEW BIRTH. 167 

verily" — Amen, Amen — is equivalent to an 
oath. If we should say, therefore, that Jesus 
the Christ regards the new birth of such im- 
portance that he swears and repeats his oath 
to the fact of its importance, we should not 
overstate his emphasis. 

i. In the first place it signifies the washing 
or cleansing of the old nature. Our hymn 
books and Bibles are full of this idea. All 
Christians, we believe, sing that beautiful hymn 
of Cowper's: 

"There is a fountain filled with blood 
Drawn from Immanuel's veins; 
And sinners plunged beneath that flood, 
Lose all their guilty stains. 

"The dying thief rejoiced to see 
That fountain in his day; 
And there may I though vile as he 
Wash all my sins away." 

Some believe that death will be a purifying 
fountain ; others believe in a purgatory of suf- 
fering in the next life; some of the old hea- 
thens believed that souls would be hung up in 
the air until their sins should evaporate; but 
the Bible declares that, 'The blood of Jesus 
Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin,'* 
and, that there must be, ' The washing of 
regeneration, and renewing of the Holy 
Ghost:" Titus 3:5. 

If you were to take a child and let him grow 
to maturity without a cleansing, how filthy he 
would be! And if you take the same boy and 



168 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

let him go on sinning- until he is twenty years 
old, what an amount of filth would he accum- 
ulate on his conscience or inner nature! But, 
with this difference: in a few months we sup- 
pose the body would get as filthy as it could 
be; no more dirt would adhere to it; but all 
the filthiness that touched the conscience 
would stick forever. 

In the Whig- convention held in the city of 
Macon, Georgia, in 1840, Wm. H. Preston, the 
orator of South Carolina, said : "Andrew Jack- 
son reached down his long- arm and took up 
Martin Van Buren out of the mire and seated 
him in the presidential chair, streaming- with 
filth; and, fellow-citizens, there is mud on him 
still." So if you should take a man in his sins 
and put him in the church there would be filth 
on him still; and if God should take him to 
heaven, unwashed, all his filthiness would ad- 
here to him there. Do you wonder, therefore, 
that Jesus the Christ swears that a man can- 
not enter the king-dom of God without this 
washing-? 

In the Old Testament when the human race 
was in its infancy, God resorted very largely 
to the kindergarten method of teaching by 
types and symbols, hence we have the blood of 
beasts to symbolize the blood of the coming 
Christ; we have all sorts of typical cleansings 
to teach us the necessity of purity of heart and 
life; indeed the Old Testament is full of teach- 
ing by type and symbol. 



THE NEW BIRTH. 169 

And because we are so far in our infancy yet 
as to need the kindergarten method we have 
the sacrament of baptism to intimate to us that, 
as water cleanses the body, so the Spirit must 
purify us from "All filthiness of the flesh and 
spirit." Hence, John the Baptist said, "I in- 
deed baptize you with water; but one mightier 
than I cometh . . . He shall baptize you 
with the Holy Ghost and with fire:" Luke 
3:16. And Christ himself says, "John truly 
baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized 
with the Holy Ghost not many days hence:" 
Acts 1:5. It seems evident, therefore, that 
water baptism was intended to typify and fore- 
shadow the baptism of the Holy Ghost. 

Now this baptism of water is a very clear 
and impressive representation of the work of 
the Spirit in the new birth or regeneration. It 
is so clear that many careless teachers have 
mistaken the representation for the thing rep- 
resented; water baptism for the baptism of the 
Spirit, that cleanseth from sin. Just as some 
Jews mistook the shedding of the typical blood 
of beasts for the blood that washes away sin. 
Surely the illustration is clear enough where 
men mistake it for the thing signified. 

It is as if you would teach a boy geography 
by telling him of the divisions of earth and 
water; but he seems slow of understanding; to 
explain the Science the better you procure an 
artificial globe, and point him to the painted 
representations of land and water on that ar- 
tificial globe, and he says, "Now I under- 



170 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

stand," and goes to building him a house to 
live in on that painted land, and a ship to sail 
on those painted seas. You would say, "No 
more can be done to teach that boy." So may 
we say of the man who mistakes water baptism 
for the baptism of the Spirit in regeneration. 
And again the further to illustrate the nature 
of this mistake, we would refer to an incident 
in ancient history. 

In the time of Pericles, about four hundred 
years before Christ, art, in Greece, attained to 
an elegance and perfection that it had never 
reached before, and has never attained since. 
During this time two of the great artists 
painted for a prize. And while the judges 
were examining one of the paintings, which 
represented grapes, some birds flew by and 
pecked at the painted grapes. This one had 
painted so as to deceive the birds. "Now," 
said the second painter to the first, "remove 
that gauze and let us see your painting;" but 
the gauze was a part of the painting. Of 
course, this last one won the prize; for though 
the first one had painted so lifelike as to de- 
ceive the birds, yet the other had painted so as 
to deceive his rival. So has Scripture illus- 
trated the meaning of regeneration, that care- 
less or incompetent teachers mistake the 
illustration for the thing illustrated; that is 
water baptism for "the washing of regenera- 
tion, and renewing of the Holy Ghost." 
Surely with such a state of facts we may not 
demand any clearer teaching. Heaven has 



THE NEW BIRTH. 171 

poured such light upon the necessity of cleans- 
ing" the old nature as to dazzle or daze weak 
eyes, just as the natural eye is overpowered 
and grows dim gazing upon the noonday sun. 

2. But secondly, the new birth signifies 
more than merely the washing of the old 
nature. It signifies also "a new creature," or 
creation. Adam when formed of the dust was 
as dead as the dust out of which he was made> 
"and [God] breathed into his nostrils the breath 
of life [lives]; and man became a living soul." 
When man sinned his animal life became 
weakened, subject to disease, through which 
it was relegated to death; his intellectual 
powers were so beclouded and bewildered that 
he thought he could hide, among the trees of 
the garden, from God; but his spiritual nature 
died outright and immediately, for he was not 
only separated from God (death signifies sep- 
aration), but he was averse to communion 
with God, even feared his presence and fled 
from him. 

Man's nature died at the top, so the new 
birth must be more than the washing of the old 
nature. There must be the restoration of life 
in the upper nature; that nature by which man 
had loved and served God, and in which he 
has no peer on our planet; the nature in which 
is the divine likeness. And as there can be no 
life but from antecedent life, this life must 
come anew from the Spirit that "breathed into 
his nostrils" at first. Hence we read that this 
newborn man is "a new creature," or creation: 



172 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

II. Cor. 5:17, and Gal. 6:15. And hence, it is 
written, "And you, being dead in your sins, 
and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he 
quickened :" Col. 2:13. Furthermore, we read, 
"Christ be formed in you:" Gal. 4:19. Again, 
"Christin you the hopeof glory:" Col. 1:27. And 
yet we read of the "new man, which after 
God is created in righteousness and true holi- 
ness:" Eph. 4:24. And again this birth is "not 
of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the 
will of man, but of God:" John 1:13. And we 
become "partakers of the divine nature:" II. 
Peter 1 4. And all this not by the agency of 
man, but by "the love of God [which] is shed 
abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which 
is given unto us:" Rom. 5:5. 

It is true that man must repent before he 
can believe unto salvation, and that he must 
believe as the condition upon which God shall 
justify and regenerate; but after the clear 
shining of revelation in the above Scriptures, 
it is amazing that men commissioned by the 
church to preach the gospel should say: 
"Religion is evolved from man," or "Holiness 
is what we do," or "Religion is a process and 
not a miracle." According to Scripture, the 
new birth is from above; is altogether the 
work of God. So that we may not ascribe 
one half of the glory to God and the other half 
to ourselves. "Agrippa, believest thou the 
prophets?" 

The necessity of the new birth may be fur- 
ther seen in the fact that no unregenerate man 



THE NEW BIRTH. 173 

can love God, neither can he love his service. 
"God is a spirit: and they that worship him 
must worship him in spirit." 

A man may be allured to the service of the 
church by the music, or by splendid ritual, or 
even by the man in the pulpit, so as to imagine 
that he delights in the worship of God. But 
that this is merely imaginary is evident from 
the fact that the more spiritual a service may 
be, the less attractions it has for him. He is 
not drawn by a prayer meeting; and, of all 
meetings, a class meeting has least alluring 
power for him. 

The uncultivated man, if not spiritual, is 
mostly attracted by the loud voice of the 
preacher; the half-cultivated, by a flowery 
style, which, though the most barren of all 
styles, he calls eloquence; while the man of 
real culture and taste, is attracted by the logic, 
or rhetoric, or elocution, more than by the 
spiritual matter and tone of the sermon. All 
of which clearly shows that a man must be- 
come spiritual through the new birth before he 
can delight in the spiritual worship of God; 
before he can make spirituality the one indis- 
pensable requisite of service, putting it on top, 
and loving it before everything else. 

The foregoing must be enough to satisfy 
anyone who is willing to accept the truth, but 
the doctrine is of such vital importance that 
Scripture pours upon it such opulence of proof 
and illustration as seems irresistible. 



174 DOCTRINES FOB THE TIMES. 

Therefore, the Apostle Paul says: "Ye are 
God's husbandry," or cultivated field, or gar- 
den. It is as if he had said, "Look upon that 
garden, where vegetables and flowers are 
cultivated and grow, while the wilderness 
stretches around in every other direction." The 
difference between that wild and tangled and 
rugged forest, and that cultivated garden, will 
illustrate the difference between a man in his 
natural estate and when recovered and made a 
new man in Christ Jesus. 

He says, moreover, to the new man: "Ye 
are God's building." You may go into a city 
built of poor material, old, dingy, and rickety; 
but some one puts up a splendid building of 
five stories in the midst of these; the new build- 
ing catches the eye and attracts attention, and 
if there be a number of such buildings, Christ 
himself says of them, "A city that is set on an 
hill cannot be hid." 

Moreover, linen, white and clean, is the en- 
duement, or clothing, of the saints. As they 
were going through great tribulation they 
"washed their robes and made them white in 
the blood of the Lamb." If you look upon an 
assembly of men, with garments all filthy and 
"tattered and torn," and there comes into that 
assembly a man clothed in linen, pure and 
white, all men will behold the difference. And 
so great is the difference between those that 
are born of the flesh and those who are born 
of the Spirit. 



THE NEW BIRTH. 175 

The new birth when we take it for what it is 
in itself, with all its antecedents and potenti- 
alities is the greatest work reported to us in 
the history of a wonder-working- God — a child 
born from above. Born partly by the "wash- 
ing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy 
Ghost." We say partly, for we have seen 
that it is also the communication of love which 
is divine. It is still further illustrated by such 
opulence of figure and symbol as if revelation 
were struggling to give us some inkling of its 
wondrous greatness. It is the unstopping of 
deaf ears, the opening of blind eyes; a transla- 
tion out of darkness into marvelous light. 
Yea, it is the resurrection of dead souls to life 
again. 

There are no conceivable states so far apart 
as death and life. Science amid her splendid 
achievements has been forced to pause on the 
brink and confess that there is no ray of light 
that shines across this abyss, even as respects 
the lowest life. When you can measure the 
eternities, past and future, then you may hope 
to measure the spaces that lie between the ter- 
ritories of life and death. There were no tim- 
bers in earth or heaven long- enough and 
strong enough to span this great gulf. The 
"Almighty's Fellow" must throw himself 
athwart and thus bridg-e it before soul of man 
or foot of pilgrim could find crossing". Yet 
this work takes us across. "We know that we 
have passed from death unto life, because we 
love the brethren." 



176 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

Now the child being; born, the dead raised 
to life, what next? Growth. Grows as trees 
grow. And it may be worthy of remark that 
the best trees are selected for the example. 
Grow like the cedars of Lebanon; like "a tree 
planted by the rivers of water;" flourish like the 
palm tree, so conspicuous in the desert. Grow 
like corn in the cultivated field, first the blade, 
then the ear, then the full corn in the ear. 
Grow as men grow. The babe is born: he 
must grow to young manhood, become a 
father, even bearing fruit in old age. And, 
moreover, "giving all diligence, add to your 
faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge," etc., 
until the chain is complete, spanned by "char- 
ity which is the bond of perfectness." 



THE DISPENSATION OP THE HOLY GHOST. Hi 

XVI. 

THE DISPENSATION OF THE HOLY GHOST. 

In this discussion we use the terms Holy 
Ghost and Holy Spirit as synonymous; for 
they represent one and the same personality. 

The Spirit, in reference to his operations, has 
three symbols — water, fire and the dove. 
Water symbolizes his cleansing agency. As 
water washes the outside, so the Spirit cleanses 
the inner man. As fire separates the alloy 
from the metal, so the Spirit separates our sins 
from us. The Christ — the anointed of the 
Spirit — is represented as coming- to his temple 
and then, "He shall sit as a refiner and 
purifier of silver:" Mai. 3:3. Thus we have 
two noted illustrations of the purifying agency 
of the Spirit, that we may have fulla ssurance 
of the fact. 

Some errorists hold that the fire was for the 
wicked, but this is contradicted by the facts, 
since the fire rested on the apostles and their 
helpers, and not on the wicked. But we have 
a very different symbol in reference to Christ. 
'The Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape 
like a dove upon him:" Luke 3:22. The dove 
symbolizes innocency. Hence we read, "My 
dove, my undefiled." And Christ says, "I 
send you forth as sheep in the midst of 

wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and 

12 



173 . DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

harmless as doves." Thus we see the dove, 
representing" innocency, could only symbolize 
the operations of the Spirit in reference to 
Christ. Sometimes we have, for impressive- 
ness, the symbol connected with the substance. 
Thiis: "Except a man be born of water and 
of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of 
God; M and, "He shall baptize you with the 
Holy Ghost, and with fire." 

The Spirit is the author of all life on our 
planet. "In the beginning God created the 
heaven and the earth. And the earth was with- 
out form, and void; and darkness was upon 
the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God 
moved [brooded] upon the face of the waters." 
The Spirit, then, is the first personality indicated 
in Scripture, and is designated here, in the 
beginning, as the originator of life. He 
brooded upon the waters, not yet separated — 
the attitude of incubation. But for the Spirit 
we might have had a world of matter, but 
without life, a dead world. 

The man himself, when formed of the dust, 
was as dead as any other matter. God 
breathed into his nostrils the breath of lives 
so that he is alive by the agency of the 
Spirit. And the Scriptures are full of the fact 
that our spiritual life is by the agency of the 
Spirit. Thus we read, "It is the spirit that 
quiekeneth:" John 6:63. "The Spirit is life:" 
Rom. 8:10. Christ was raised through the 
"Eternal Spirit," and this quickening is to ex- 
tend to our mortal bodies, so that ourresurrec- 



THE DISPENSATION OF THE HOLY GHOST. 179 

tion, as well as regeneration, is by the same 
quickening; Spirit. 

The Scriptures are by the inspiration of the 
Holy Ghost. Holy men spake as moved by 
the Holy Ghost. All Scripture is given, or 
all Scripture inspired of God is profitable. It 
is well to bear this in mind, for it is the Spirit- 
pervaded word that is "quick and powerful." 
"The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.'* 
Whenever, therefore, we read of the word as 
a quickening or cleansing power, it is to be 
understood of the Spirit-pervaded word. The 
word is the instrument or sword of the Spirit. 

We have the Christ, in his birth and conse- 
cration to office by the agency of the Spirit. 
"The angel answered and said unto her 
[Mary], the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, 
and the power of the Highest shall overshadow 
thee: therefore also that holy thing which 
shall be born of thee shall be called the Son 
of God:" Luke 1:35. But he is not only 
begotten by the Holy Ghost, but he is also 
commissioned for his work by the Holy 
Ghost. "And Jesus, when he was baptized, 
went up straightway out of [from] the water: 
and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and 
he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove 
and lighting upon him: and lo a voice from 
heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in 
whom I am well pleased:" Matt. 3:16-17. 

By the aid of another Scripture we may 
comprehend somewhat of the facts of his in- 
carnation and consecration to the redeeming 



180 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

work. He came to Nazareth and went into 
the synagogue: "And there was delivered unto 
him the book of the prophet Esaias. And 
when he had opened the book, he found the 
place where it was written, The Spirit of the 
Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed 
me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath 
sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach 
deliverance to the captives, and recovering of 
sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that 
are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of 
the Lord:" Luke 4:17-19. And at verse 21, 
he began to say, "This day is this Scripture 
fulfilled in your ears." 

He is the Christ, begotten of the Holy 
Ghost, and was authorized to do all his work 
by the authority of the Holy Ghost. Christ 
himself shows his warrant to preach the gos- 
pel from the Holy Ghost, and whoever essays 
to preach from any lower authority, has stolen 
the shepherd's crook, and must fail to feed the 
flock. You may have Scripture, but it must be 
quickened, and sharpened, and made powerful 
by the Holy Ghost. You may preach the 
gospel, but you must preach it with the "Holy 
Ghost sent down from heaven." 

Greater and more stable work is done by the 
Holy Ghost than was done by Christ in his 
personal ministry. Christ says, "Verily, verily, 
I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the 
works that I do shall he do also; and greater 
works than these shall he do; because I go 
unto my Father:" John 14:12. They under- 



THE DISPENSATION OF THE HOLY GHOST. 181 

stood this not then, but afterwards. The first 
sermon preached after his ascent gathered 
more converts than Christ had won in the 
whole of his three years' ministry; and the con- 
verts made under the dispensation of the 
Spirit were much more stable than those 
gathered under the personal ministry of Christ. 

Perhaps he left less than a thousand fol- 
lowers at the time of his ascension. He had 
enlisted more, but they were unstable as water. 
At one time, they all forsook him, because 
they were offended at the doctrine that he 
preached. Even the chosen twelve were slow 
and cowardly. But when the Holy Ghost 
came upon them, they became the bravest men 
that ever faced danger, and their converts 
were much more stable than those made by 
his personal ministry. Hence, Luke writing of 
them, a quarter of a century after they joined 
the church, says, "And they continued sted- 
fastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, 
and in breaking of bread, and in prayers:" 
Acts 2:42. 

Now, we have a protracted meeting, and the 
community, we say, is stirred to its founda- 
tions, and thoroughly reformed. We visit the 
same community, after two or three years, and 
can hardly find a footprint of evangelist or 
revival. The trouble is that the work was su- 
perficial. There was human eloquence and 
manipulation in plenty; but the failure was in 
the fact that we had not tarried at Jerusalem 
until clothed with power from on high. Let 



182 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

the Holy Ghost do the work, and it will be 
likely to stand until the stars shall fall. 

The difference between your convert, made 
by human manipulation, and the one made by 
the Holy Ghost, is that one "stands in the wis- 
dom of man," the other in the "power of God.'* 
The manifestation will be like the difference 
of annual and evergreen plants. In summer 
time, the annual tree looks to the unpracticed 
eye to be more flourishing- than the evergreen. 
But wait until winter frosts shall fall, and win- 
ter winds shall blow, and the evergreens are 
all the more conspicuous for the leafless desti- 
tution that reigns through all the rest of the 
forest. "He shall be like a tree planted by the 
rivers of water, > . . his leaf also shall 
not wither." 

But does not this teach final perseverance ? 
Yes, and we believe in final perseverance. The 
Holy Ghost does work to stand. We do not be- 
lieve that the man who has had the love of God 
shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost 
will in a short time transfer his membership 
from the church of God to that worst of all 
the synagogues of Satan, the liquor saloon. 
Such cases may occur, but we are made to 
wonder, as Paul did over the backsliding Gal- 
latians. He says, "I marvel that ye are so 
soon removed from him that called you into 
the grace of Christ unto another gospel:" GaL 
1:6. 

But was not the Holy Ghost poured out 
upon the apostles and others on the day of 



THE DISPENSATION OF THE HOLY GHOST. 183 

Pentecost, to enable them to work miracles ? 
Yes; but he was also given to "Reprove the 
world of sin:" John 16:8. Also as a wit- 
ness: John 15:26; as a "comforter:" John 
14:26; and as an enduement or clothing of 
power: Luke 24:49. 

AND THE HOLY GHOST CAME TO STAYi 

If not, we should be left orphans indeed; for 
the Apostle Paul tells us, long- after Pentecost, 
that "No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, 
but by the Holy Ghost:" I. Cor. 12:3. '* 

If the Holy Ghost was not to be an abiding 
presence and power, the apostolic benediction 
would be misleading, and Paul would no doubt 
have instructed the Corinthians and, through 
them , all the ages when to cease using it. "The 
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of 
God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be 
with you all:" II. Cor. 13:14. If the Holy Ghost 
was not to continue, then baptism into 
the name of Father, Son and Holy Ghost 
ought not to be continued. But we have ex- 
press statements of Scripture that the Holy 
Ghost is to continue. Peter says on the day 
of Pentecost: "Repent, and be baptized every 
one of you in the name of Jesus Christ 
for the remission of sins, and ye shall 
receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the 
promise is unto you, and to your children, and 
to all that are afar off, even as many as the 
Lord our God shall call:" Acts 2:38-30. Here 



184 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

it is evident that the promise in the text is 
the same as in the context, namely: The 
promise of the Holy Ghost to the Jews and 
their children or posterity. Yea, the promise 
to "all that are afar off, even as many as the 
Lord our God shall call," would embrace every 
believer to the end of the world. 

If any one wants still stronger proof, he will 
find it, if any words can make it stronger, in 
John's Gospel. He reports Christ to have 
said, "If ye love me, keep my commandments. 
And I will pray the Father, and he shall give 
you another Comforter, that he may abide with 
you for ever; even the Spirit of truth:" 
John 14:15-17; and in verse 26, this Comforter is 
called the "Holy Ghost," and is to "reprove 
the world of sin, and of righteousness, and 
of judgment:" John 16:8. The Holy Ghost, 
then, is to abide "for ever" to comfort the saints 
and to reprove or convict sinners. If anybody 
rejects the doctrine, it cannot be for want of 
clearness in the revelation. 

Jesus Christ was never seen at more than 
one place at one and the same time, neither 
before nor after his resurrection. The jug- 
gling Cagliostro might seem to leave St. Pe- 
tersburg from all the gates of the city at 
eleven o'clock on the same day. The Romish 
priests profess to produce the body of Christ 
in a thousand places at one and the same time. 
But Christ was not a juggler. He wrought 
wonders, took command of the elements 
whenever he chose, and raised the dead; but 



THE DISPENSATION OF THE HOLY GHOST. 185 

he never pretended to manifest absurdities or 
contradictions. 

After his resurrection he entered the room 
through closed doors, and, before, he walked 
on the water, but he was never manifest in 
Jerusalem and Galilee at one and the same 
time. Hence, we have one reason why it was 
expedient that Christ should go away and 
that the Holy Ghost should come. If Christ 
had remained he would have been limited by 
place and time. If he were in New York, he 
could not be here, and yet we should need 
him here every day, every moment. Now 
that the Holy Ghost has come, representing 
the Father and the Son, he can fulfill that 
wonderful promise: "Lo, I am with you al- 
way, even unto the end of the world." He 
can be with the preacher that preaches here 
and with the one that preaches over there, and 
everywhere. And he can fulfill that other 
wonderful promise, "Where two or three are 
gathered together in my name, there am I in 
the midst of them." 

There has been a dispensation of each per- 
son of the Trinity. 

i. The dispensation of the Father, in which 
we had the promulgation of law. All along, 
indeed, there had been law. But to impress 
men he inaugurated the dispensation of law, 
amid smoke and fire and sound of trumpet 
and thunder and earthquake. Nevertheless, 
the Christ and the Holy Ghost were not 
absent from the dispensation of law. It was 



186 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

in that dispensation that the angel of the 
covenant and the smitten rock and various 
types and shadows represented Christ. And 
it was in that dispensation that the power and 
omnipresence of the Spirit were first revealed. 
"Not by might, nor by power, but by my 
spirit, saith the Lord:" Zech. 4:6. "Whither 
shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I 
flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into 
heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in 
hell, behold, thou art there:" Psalms 139:7-8. 

Christ was present all along, else there could 
have been no redemption. But his dispensa- 
tion is inaugurated by wonders as great as 
were manifested at the giving of the law. A 
new star is created, or one leaves his place in 
midheaven, to guide wise men to the manger 
where the infant Man-God is cradled. A choir 
of angels leaves heaven and comes down to 
shout in the ear of the shepherds on the plains 
of Bethlehem: "Glory to God in the highest, 
and on earth peace, good will toward men." 

And in the dispensation of the Son we get 
many intimations of the Father. Christ in his 
humanity prays to the Father and professes 
to be sent by him and to do his works. So 
also in the dispensation of the Son do we get 
bright manifestations of the Spirit. Christ is 
born — begotten — of the Spirit, baptized of the 
Spirit, preaches with the Holy Ghost, and 
through the Holy Ghost gave "command- 
ments" to the apostles: Acts 1:2. 



THE DISPENSATION OP THE HOLY GHOST. 187 

The Spirit had been present all along", but 
now his dispensation is to be inaugurated. 
By direction, the apostles, with one hundred 
and twenty brethren and sisters, are assembled 
with one accord, in one place, praying and 
waiting for his coming. Suddenly, on the tenth 
day of this prayer meeting", a sound came 
down from heaven, as the rush of a mighty 
wind, and it filled all the house where they 
were sitting; and parted fire flames sat on 
twelve persons, on one hundred and twenty 
persons; and they praised God with other 
tongues — so that the multitude was made to 
wonder. Nature is moved to inaugurate the 
dispensation of the Father. A star and a 
choir of ang-els and wise men move to inaugu- 
rate the dispensation of the Son. But when 
the dispensation of the Spirit is inaugurated, 
not an atom of matter is put in motion, not an 
angel comes out of heaven, but the sound of 
the coming enduement is heard coming down 
out of heaven and fire falls from the eternal 
fire fountains, but the unparalleled glory of the 
dispensation is seen in the fact that "they were 
all filled with the Holy Ghost." 

There is more light and life and power in 
the dispensation of the Spirit, than there was 
or could be in the dispensation of the Father, 
or of the Son. Indeed, the grand peculiarity 
of the dispensation of the Holy Ghost is that 
it is eminently the dispensation of light and 
life and power. Herein we get the meaning: 
of Christ when he says, "Whosoever speak- 



188 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

eth a word against the Son of man, it shall be 
forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against 
the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, 
neither in this world, neither in the world to 
come:" Matt. 12:32. 

But is not the day of miracles past ? Some 
think the day of miracles ceased with the apos- 
tolic age, or soon thereafter. Others think they 
continued as late as the fifth century, and they 
offer in proof that a Trinitarian who had his 
tongue cut out for his faith, praised the Father 
Son and Holy Ghost with a tongueless mouth. 
But it is said that men have been known to 
speak after losing their tongues. But be this 
as it may, and define a miracle as you may 
conceive it, yet as a well-authenticated fact, 
God is doing many wonderful works in our 
day. We have no doubt you will agree with 
us in this statement, if you are a "new man in 
Christ Jesus." It may be wonderful that God 
should answer prayer, but admitting the truth 
of Christianity, it would be more wonderful 
that he should not be able to answer prayer in 
our day. You go to a physician for a remedy, 
and get it in answer to your request, why may 
you not go to the Great Physician, believing 
that he has as much skill as the little doctor. 

We believe God is now exercising as good 
a providence as ever he did in the history of 
the church. And the better men are, the 
nearer they get to Christ, the more they 
realize this fact. But, more than all, God is 
doing, in our day, the greatest work that he 



THE DISPENSATION OP THE HOLY GHOST. 189 

ever did. He is doing the work for which 
Scripture was written; for which Christ was 
incarnated, crucified, and arose from the dead, 
and ascended; the work for which the Holy 
Ghost was given — the work for which all 
the miracles were wrought. He is, in our 
day, manifesting himself as a pardoning 
God and a Saviour; as high over all and 
blessed forevermore in that he "hath power on 
earth to forgive sins." All other works 
are of little consequence when compared with 
this. You may call it miracle or not, but it is 
above all miracles, greater than healing sick 
bodies, or raising the dead; greater than 
making worlds and hanging them on nothing. 
The greatest work God ever did, in any history 
of his doings reported to us, is to shed abroad 
his love "in our hearts by the Holy Ghost." 
So that we have in our hearts the testimony 
that Jesus is the Christ. We speak of the 
miracle of Pentecost, and we believe that if the 
church would purge herself from the "old 
leaven" and get on her knees in fervent, con- 
tinuous prayer, we should see as great displays 
of power as were witnessed that day in the 
"upper room." Why not? Does the truth 
and the grace and the power of the dawn 
grow weaker as the day advances? The 
manifestation at the Memphis conference, and 
as we have seen it at other places, warrant us 
in saying this. But we must have a great 
house cleaning before he will make us indi- 



190 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

vidually or collectively his habitation through 
the Spirit. 

George Muller ran an orphan asylum for 
thirty years by faith. There is no reasonable 
doubt as to the facts. He never asked assist- 
ance, and he was not once nor twice but many 
times without food to feed many hundred per- 
sons. When he lay down at night there was 
nothing for breakfast, but he believed God 
would send the food and it came in every in- 
stance. The testimony is so strong as to 
convince Mr. Wallace, the scientific infidel, 
and companion of Charles Darwin. He says 
the food came, there could be no doubt of that. 
But, as he was an atheist, he accounted for it 
by supposing that his benevolence engaged 
benevolent spirits to move upon the hearts of 
benevolent men to render help in every time 
of need. Look at George Muller, and look at 
Pentecost; and remember that we are in the 
dispensation of the Holy Ghost. 

"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
the love of God, and the communion of the 
Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen.'' 



THE MILLENNIUM. 19.1 

XVII. 

THE MILLENNIUM. 

In nearly every century of the Christian era, 
there has been more or less excitement over 
the coming* of a millennium, or personal reign 
of Christ, upon earth, of a thousand years. 
And it has, in most or all instances, been harm- 
ful to true spiritual religion. For when the 
positive assertions of the speedy coming of 
Christ have been believed and not realized, 
men have become skeptical in reference to the 
Scriptures in general, however soberly inter- 
preted. 

The greatest and most influential divine of 
the third century had to muster all his learning 
and strain all his influence to keep back the 
tide of millennial fanaticism, that was over- 
whelming the church in that century. 

Many of those who are teaching that the 
millennium is now near, can see and under- 
stand the mistake that their brethren then 
made, after a millennium and a half has passed, 
and their millennium yet to come. Neverthe- 
less, they are as confident to-day as they were 
when Origen put them to silence, and since the 
ages have demonstrated their mistakes. The 
Munster reign of the saints, wherein they an- 
ticipated the immediate second coming of 
Christ, and played such "fantastic tricks" as 



192 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

have made them and their movements odious 
to this day, should, one might suppose, make 
people a little modest and cautious. But it 
does not seem to have done so. One of that 
kind, and among- the wisest and best of them, 
so far as we know, found that the United 
States was the restored Israel, and that the 
Declaration of Independence ought to have 
been made on the 4th of July, 1776, at three 
o'clock p. m., and by writing- to the department 
at Washington, found that he had counted the 
time of the fulfillment of prophecy exactly to 
the very hour. And the strangeness of it is, 
that many otherwise good and sober-minded 
people accepted such fond delusion as gospel. 

Many people now living may be able to call 
to mind the fanaticism of the Millerites, of the 
present century. They went so far as to pro- 
cure ascension robes, and assemble, that they 
might meet the Lord at his coming. 

But the most mischievous of all the false 
teaching of the ages on this question, may be 
found in a book that has had very large circu- 
lation in our day, to wit, "Millennial Dawn," 
by one Charles T. Russell. Strange that men 
and women claiming to be intelligent Chris- 
tians, should patronize, even embrace such fa- 
natical wickedness. Let us listen to a little of 
it. Christ says, "My kingdom is not of this 
world." But Charles T. Russell says the mil- 
lennial reign shall be brought in by Christ's 
dealing with the world; "much in the same 
manner that the United States Government 



THE MILLENNIUM. 193 

dealt with the Southern States, after the re- 
bellion:" p. 302. Should that be so, people 
would have a pretty rough time of it in the 
"dawn." But it will get better after awhile, 
especially for the wicked. He teaches that 
Christ lost his divine nature in order to do the 
redeeming work. But because he did that 
work, the Father has exalted him again to di- 
vinity, perhaps to a higher divinity than was 
lost, pp. 175, 176. We should suppose that any 
schoolboy of common sense would reject such 
folly and blasphemy. 

He makes the day of judgment a blessed 
day for all sinners; but the saints do not share 
in the blessedness. It is all for the wicked; 
pp. 143, 144. Christ tells us of a narrow way 
that leads to life, and of a broad way that 
leads to destruction. Mr. Russell teaches 
that the broad way leads through destruction 
into the ''highway of holiness;" p. 214. He 
writes still further in favor of wickedness by 
inculcating the idea that it will be much easier 
to serve God in the future state than in the 
present; pp. 212, 213. Like many other fa- 
natics he quotes Scripture in great abundance 
but with little discrimination as to its rele- 
vancy. And yet, as already intimated, this 
bad, foolish book has had perhaps as large 
sale as any book of our day. And we confess 
that we cannot account for this, unless it be 
because he would lead us to believe that in 
the end it shall be well with the wicked. 

IS 



194 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

It would seem that many men have all 
along been more solicitous to pry into the fu- 
ture, than to promote the spiritual kingdom of 
God. Even the apostles in their last interview 
with Christ, after his resurrection, seem more 
solicitous to understand the political fortunes 
of Israel than for the spiritual kingdom of 
God. Hence they ask, "Wilt thou at this 
time restore again the kingdom to Israel?" 
They were looking for the worldly reign of 
Christ even to that day. They learned better 
after Pentecost. But he said unto them, "It 
is not for you to know the times or the sea- 
sons, which the Father hatia put in his own 
power." 

If there is a millenium coming, Christ has 
not revealed the time of it to men. "Secret 
things belong unto God." And it might be 
well, it is at least becoming to our modesty,, 
not to be meddling too much with his reserva- 
tion. These things are his secrets. What he 
refused to his inspired apostles he will not 
likely open to us. It is presumption in us to 
become wise above what is revealed. Instead 
of such wisdom, he says: "Ye shall receive 
power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon 
you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in 
Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria,, 
and unto the uttermost part of the earth." That 
is much better than to be puzzling ourselves 
and others about the time of the millenium. 

It is well to look for the coming of Christ. 
He is coming to us in death, or his millennial 



THE MILLENNIUM. 195 

reign, or in the judgment. He is coming, but 
it is many thousands of times more probable 
that he will come to you and me in death than 
in his millennial reign during- the period of 
our probation. 

There is not a passage in the book that 
promises the personal reign of Christ on earth. 
And yet on such an hypothesis, this doctrine, 
that has done so much mischief in nearly all 
the centuries since Christ, has been built. 
The fact that this is a mere assumption is 
overlooked in the many calculations that catch 
those who are ready to hope for such a state 
of facts. The predictions of the millennial 
writers are like the predictions of weather by 
the almanac makers. Some people look in 
the almanac to see what will be the state of 
the weather at some given time, and some- 
times it happens as predicted. But the millen- 
nial guessers have not succeeded in hitting 
the mark once in nearly two thousand years. 
And if we give them two thousand years more 
they will in all probability continue to miss. 
For, in fact, no such time as they are looking 
for is promised. 

But before we come to that let us premise 
that we are not making satisfactory advances 
towards a better day, that is surely coming. 
Some things are improving and some are not. 
The area of Christendom is widening, and 
people are getting more liberal. When Mr. 
Yale gave four hundred pounds for a college, 
the curators assembled, voted thanks, and 



196 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

named the college after the liberal donor. 
Since then there has been great increase of 
liberality among rich men, and also among 
many that are not rich. That goes for some- 
thing. 

And there is a wider spread of light among 
the peoples of the earth. And that may go 
for something; much less, however, than many 
are disposed to think, since most people know 
better than they perform. Dives thought it 
was knowledge that his brethren needed; but 
Abraham says: "They have Moses and the 
prophets; ... If they hear not Moses 
and the prophets, neither will they be per- 
suaded, though one rose from the dead." It 
was not more light so much as better disposi- 
tions that they needed. 

Enoch was without the advantages of the 
Jews, had no written revelation at all, and yet 
he walked with God three hundred years; and 
his piety is emphasized and made conspicuous 
through all ages by the statement of his trans- 
lation. 

Abel had no ^written revelation; nothing, in 
fact, so far as we know, but the tutelage of his 
parents; and his boyish associations were un- 
promising with that bad brother. And yet his 
example speaks through all generations. 

In Greece the golden age of art and litera- 
ture culminated in the time of Pericles. And 
yet this was the age that murdered the virtu- 
ous Socrates, the wisest and best man that 
Greece ever, produced. 



TEE MILLENNIUM. 197 

The time of the great poet and the great 
orator, in Rome, was the most licentious in the 
history of Rome — a time for the spread of the 
doctrine and practice of suicide. Moreover^ 
this was the time when Roman authority could 
link itself with Jewish prejudice for the murder 
of the Son of God. 

It was the time of the highest culture that 
France ever saw that the Revolution came, in 
which was manifested such crime, and espe- 
cially such bloodguiltiness, that causes us, at 
this distance of more than a hundred years, to 
shudder. All of which, and much more that 
might be adduced, of like kind, admonishes 
us that we may not rely on the mere spread of 
knowledge. The fact is, as all history proves, 
there are no moral elements in merely intel- 
lectual culture. Culture is a great power, that 
may be courted and won to the aid of either 
vice or virtue. Enlightenment is good or bad, 
as bestowed on good or bad people. Hitherto, 
it has been the servant mostly of bad men. 

This is, more than any that has gone before, 
an age of schools and mental culture, and also 
an age of religious activity and missionary 
movement. And yet it is an age of flippancy, 
of irreverence and skepticism; an age of sui- 
cides and increasing crime. 

This is a day of very great increase of Sab- 
bath desecration. And we suppose that ob- 
serving people have all noticed that whoever 
have loose notions and practice in regard to 
the sacredness of the Sabbath, are loose all 



108 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

round. And then there is not only a loosening" 
of the bonds of marriage, by the increased fre- 
quency of divorce, but there is increasing dis- 
relish for the duties that pertain to the marriage 
relation. It is well to remember that the 
hardest licks that infidelity is putting in against 
the Christian religion, are aimed at her through 
the only paradisaical institutions that have 
come down to us; that is, the Sabbath and 
marriage. 

We have abundant evidence that iniquity is 
increasing under the shadow of the school 
house. And the reason of this is evidently be- 
cause the Bible and religious teaching are being 
more and more ignored in the public schools. 
Morally and religiously, society must become 
worse and worse, under such a state of facts. 
Take away the Bible, the only source of Chris- 
tian teaching, and you relegate us to heathen- 
ism. Such is the trend of the public school 
system of this country. And the worst of it is, 
that Christian people are becoming less and 
less alarmed by it. In fact, many are acqui- 
escing in such a state of affairs, if not as de- 
sirable, yet as inevitable. 

Now, let us turn to some facts well authen- 
ticated as to the condition of this country: 
'There has been a great increase in Sabbath 
desecration in ten years. There was three times 
as much intoxicating liquor used per capita in 
the United States, in 1883, as there was in 1840. 
Divorce has been doubled in proportion to 
marriage or population, in most of the North- 



THE MILLENNIUM. 199 

ern States, in thirty years. While the popula- 
tion increased thirty per cent., from 1870 to 
1880, the number of criminals in the United 
States increased 82.32 per cent.:" Our Country \ 
by Josiah Strong. 

If these statistics are anywhere in the neigh- 
borhood of the facts, the gospel is not keeping 
step with the increase of population in this 
country. 

But Dr. L. C. Garland, when chancellor of 
Vanderbilt University, collected even more 
damaging facts, as published in the Christian 
Advocate (Nashville), October 6, 1892. He says: 
"Are our public men more unselfish, more 
patriotic and self-sacrificing than were our 
grandfathers? Are they less accessible to the 
corrupting influences of party politics? Are 
they honester, purer men than were our fore- 
fathers? And passing from politics to the 
business of life, are men more exact in comply- 
ing with their engagements? Are they more 
honest in their dealings with their fellow-men? 
Is there less misrepresentation and overreach- 
ing, and trickery in trade? Is there less of 
adulteration and fraud in the commodities of the 
market? Are there fewer defalcations and em- 
bezzlements in office? Are our jails and peniten- 
tiaries less crowded with criminals and convicts? 
And passing to domestic life, is the marital 
relation more sacredly observed? Are 
divorces less frequent? Is domestic hap- 
piness more certainly secured? A candid ex- 
amination of the census for each successive 



200 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

decade, making all allowance for the increase 
of population, will force a negative reply to 
all these questions." He goes on: "General 
Brinkerhoof, a specialist, expert in statistics, 
declares, crime is frightfully on the increase. 
If the United States census reports are to be 
trusted, crime for fifty years has risen like a 
tide to which there is no ebb. In 1850 the 
criminals were one to every 3,442 of population; 
in i860, one in 1,647; in 1870, one in 1,020; 
in 1880, one in 837." 

So if knowledge has increased, crime has 
increased more abundantly, which forces us to 
confess with Lord Byron: 

"He that knows the most must mourn the deepest o'er 
the fatal truth. 
The tree of knowledge is not the tree of life." 

Dr. Garland suggested as a remedy that our 
educational movements should be made to as- 
sume a more Christian type. Of course, if we 
are to stem the tide of iniquity that is over- 
whelming the country partly by excluding the 
Bible from the public schools, we must so 
reform our system as greatly to emphasize and 
increase Christian culture. But even this will 
not be enough. We must in addition to this 
enthrone the Holy Ghost in our churches; m 
pulpit and pew. We would not underrate 
human effort and yet it amounts to very little 
without the help of God through the enduement 
of power in the Holy Ghost. Get the Holy 
Ghost in this his own dispensation, and you 



THE MILLENNIUM. 201 

may increase opposition, but you will insure 
success. Put men in the ministry who will be 
true successors to Paul and Peter, and Luther 
and Wesley, and you will secure success; 
otherwise we shall continue to drift downward. 
Truth is mighty, but error and sin have been 
and continue to be wonderfully strong. Truth 
has on its side wise and good men; but error 
has with it the wisdom of the world, the in- 
clinations of the flesh, and the strength of 
Satan unmatched by human power, so that 
there is no hope for us but in God. Let the 
ritualistic churches go on with their ritualism 
as a substitute for spiritual religion; let one 
church continue to hold that water does the 
finishing work in regeneration ; and let the mem- 
bers of other churches, having "itching ears," 
clamor for such "enticing words of man's wis- 
dom" as will draw crowds to their churches, 
and it will take more years than are contained 
in all the eternities to win the world to Christ. 
But it shall not be so forever; for the prom- 
ises that cannot be broken, give assurance of a 
better day coming. Listen: "So shall they 
fear the name of the Lord from the west, and 
his glory from the rising of the sun. When 
the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit 
of the Lord shall lift up a standard against 
him:" Isaiah 59:19. That is just what we need 
to roll back the tide of iniquity and to bring 
in everlasting righteousness. "Not by might, 
nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord." 
We must get the spirit that proceedeth from 



202 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

the Father and the Son and then we shall 
have all the might of the united Godhead. 
We are going- to get the Holy Ghost in Pente- 
costal power, and then men shall be born from 
above, one here and another there; and not 
only so, they shall be born by thousands, even 
a nation in a day. The millennium shall have 
its dawn and sunrise and noonday splendor, 
just as any other day. Christ is going to reign, 
not merely in the letter, but also in the spirit. 
The millennium will cover a thousand pro- 
phetic years, much more than a thousand 
literal years. The world is yet in babyhood. 
The coming of the millennium will be ushered 
in by intensifying the ordinary means of grace, 
not by departure from the old, ever new plan 
of the gospel. We shall not be relegated to 
the dispensation of the Father, and put back 
to the slow tutelage of the law, neither shall we 
return to the dispensation of the Son, after 
living under the higher dispensation of the 
Spirit. If it was expedient that the Son should 
go away that the Holy Ghost might come, it 
is still expedient that he should stay away that 
the Spirit may "abide with us forever." We 
shall go back neither to the dispensation of 
the Father nor of the Son. No: we shall go 
forward in the higher dispensation of the Spirit. 
It would wreck the fortunes of the world and 
ruin the hope of the church thus to put us back. 
If Christ were to come to the earth to reign 
personally, all eyes might turn to Jerusalem, or 
to whatever place he might fix his local habi- 



THE MILLENNIUM. 203 

tation. But all other places would suffer by 
the withdrawal of the Spirit, or by lowering; 
his influences; for as God is a God of order, the 
Spirit would not be the great agent of 
spiritual work, when Christ should be on earth 
inviting- all to his local abode. It would 
largely unspiritualize and lower the work. Not 
in Jerusalem, nor in any place, but in the 
Spirit. That is the order that Christ held for 
our worship. 

Yes, there is a better time coming". A time 
that shall not be good for the wicked, but very 
delightful for the righteous. We may read 
about it still further, Isaiah 11:4-9: "With 
righteousness shall he judge the poor, and 
reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: 
and he shall smite the earth with the rod of 
his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall 
he slay the wicked. And righteousness shall 
be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the 
girdle of his reins. The wolf also shall dwell 
with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down 
with the kid; and the calf and the young lion 
and the fatling together; and a little child shall 
lead them. And the cow and the bear shall 
feed; their young ones shall lie down together: 
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And 
the sucking child shall play on the hole of the 
asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand 
on the cockatrice' den. They shall not hurt 
nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the 
earth shall be full of the knowledge of the 
Lord, as the waters cover the sea." This is a 



204 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

figurative description of the first coming- of 
Christ. But the full realization is not yet; for 
the earth is not yet, but it shall be "full of the 
knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the 
sea." 

In Isaiah 40:4-5, we read as follows: "Every 
valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and 
hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be 
made straight, and the rough places plain : And 
the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all 
flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the 
Lord hath spoken it." This Scripture is ap- 
plied to the coming of Christ by John the 
Baptist, as we read Luke 3:5-6. But we can 
not help seeing that the prophecy is to be fully 
realized after this coming of Christ, even after 
our day. Evidently there is coming a day of 
triumph for the gospel, such as has not yet 
been realized. Most of the world is yet in the 
power of the wicked one. This has been a 
great strain upon the faith of the church; good 
people have been staggered by it. It is 
necessary here to walk by faith. But the 
brighter and better day is coming; "for the 
mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." And when 
it comes it will be most glorious. 

It is even more desirable for Christendom 
that that day should hasten than it is for 
heathendom. "The light of the moon shall 
be as the light of the sun, and the light of the 
sun shall be sevenfold." That is, if we under- 
stand the prophecy, when the heathen come 
in, it shall be wonderfully good for them, but 



THE MILLENNIUM. 205 

the improvement shall be greater to those that 
have been the instruments of bringing- them in. 
The light of the church will be sevenfold, for 
they shall realize that it is more blessed to give 
than to receive. We infer that when you send 
the gospel to the heathen you, under Christ, 
do a great work for them; but a greater for 
yourselves, and for the church, through the 
blessing of God. 

There is a wonderful description of this time 
in Rev. 20:1-6: 

"1 And I saw an angel come down from 
heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit 
and agreat chain in his hand. 

"2. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old 
serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and 
bound him a thousand years. 

"3. And cast him into the bottomless pit, and 
shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he 
should deceive the nations no more, till the 
thousand years should be fulfilled: and after 
that he must be loosed a little season. 

"4. And I saw thrones, and they sat up- 
on them, and judgment was given unto them: 
and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded 
for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of 
God, and which had not worshiped the beast, 
neither his image, neither had received the 
mark upon their forehead, or in their hands; 
and they lived and reigned with Christ a 
thousand years. 

"5. But the rest of the dead lived not again 
until the thousand years were finished. This 
is the first resurrection. 



206 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES, 

"6. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in 
the first resurrection: on such the second 
death hath no power, but they shall be priests 
of God and of Christ, and shall reign with 
him a thousand years." 

There are two or three observations to be 
made on this notable and much abused pas- 
sage. 

i. It is not said that Christ is coming to 
the earth; it is not said that he is coming per- 
sonally to reign on the earth. All that is mere 
assumption, and has no warrant from this 
Scripture, in which alone the millennium, or 
reign of Christ for a thousand years, is men- 
tioned. 

2. It is not said that Christ shall reign a 
thousand years. And to call it the thousand 
years reign of Christ, may be misleading. 
Christ is reigning now; will reign long after 
this thousand years have expired, for his king- 
dom is an everlasting kingdom. 

3. What is said is this, that the saints who 
arise, in the first resurrection, "lived and 
reigned with Christ a thousand years." From 
all that appears, Christ does not move from 
where he now is, at the right hand of the 
Father in heaven. He does not change his 
place, nor does he change his government, but 
admits those of the first resurrection to reign 
with himself. As they had been in their life- 
time co-workers with him, he admits them to 
reign with him. That is a very different thing 



THE MILLENNIUM. 207 

from his coming- to the earth to exercise him- 
self in a visible personal reign. 

4. In the fifth verse it is said, "But the rest 
of the dead lived not again until the thousand 
years were finished." So that the assertion of 
Mr. Russell, and others of that sort, that the 
wicked shall have a new probation, is contra- 
dicted by the very text that gives us hope of a 
millennium: "The rest of the dead lived not 
again until the thousand years were finished." 
The charitable conclusion is that Mr. Russell 
and his supporters were too much excited by 
their own views to give attention to the read- 
ing of Scripture. 

Let us get out of mind the visible earthly 
reign of Christ. Let us get a new and greater 
baptism of the Holy Ghost. Let us not rest 
until we get every member of the church to be 
able to say, by the agency of the "Holy Ghost," 
that Jesus is Lord. Let those that preach, 
struggle until they can preach the gospel with 
the "Holy Ghost sent down from heaven." 
And then, but not until then, will the millen- 
nium come. 

The Devil shall be "chained," not with fet- 
ters of steel, but by the moral and spiritual 
influences of the gospel. The Devil has al- 
ways been so chained that he cannot enter 
any man's heart, unless the man himself open 
the door and invite him in. "Resist the Devil, 
and he will flee from you:" James 4:7. 

"And Satan trembles when he sees 
The weakest saint upon his knees." 



208 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

When the millennium comes, when the king- 
doms of this world become the kingdoms of 
our God and of his Christ, you will hardly find 
a government so lost to the idea of all that is 
good and pure as to license a liquor saloon. 
As sure as the millennium shall come — really, 
in order that it may come — there must be no 
spot of earth desecrated by such an institution. 
In the dawn of that day, you will find the gam- 
bling hells turned to better purposes, and could 
not get up a social card party, nor any sort of 
beast to run down the prey for the roaring 
lion. 

Now you may strive to make your home a 
paradise; but so soon as your children get out 
of your door, they are met by the Devil, 
through many soliciting agencies. Popular 
men and fascinating women unite to lure them 
from all the good influences of home life and 
training, to ways that lead to death, • to steps 
that take hold on hell. But when the millen- 
nium comes, it will so refine and purify public 
opinion that society will demand more of 
women than it now does, and it will require 
as much of men as it does of women, in the di- 
rection of purity. Society will say to Satan, 
come in whatsoever guise or agencies he 
may, as Jesus said to him, "Begone." For 
the kingdoms of this world shall become the 
kingdoms of our God and of his Christ. And 
nothing will be tolerated in society that soils 
the white robes of purity. This is the way 
that the Devil shall be chained when we reach 



THE MILLENNIUM. 209 

the millennial reign; otherwise, it would be 
the continuance of the reign of the "old ser- 
pent, the Devil." Thus shall he be cast out of 
the governing powers, out of society, and for 
the most part, out of individuals, that Messias, 
the Prince, may reign. 

We have in some of our church schools an 
illustration of what may be hoped for from the 
millennium. Our children in the city and vil- 
lages and country places are brought into con- 
tact with all sorts of wickedness. So much so 
that it seems to their inexperienced minds that 
wickedness is honorable; indeed, that it is the 
only way by which the favorable opinion of 
society is to be won. The young people of 
their acquaintance that have had educational 
advantages, and that lead society, are also 
leaders in the social card parties, in the dance, 
and in all places of worldly amusements; per- 
haps, also, in social dram drinking, and in mis- 
cellaneous wickedness. In this society their 
strict home training is ridiculed — and youth is 
sensitive to ridicule. But when they enter the 
church school they find a new world. Learned 
professors — and young people think their pro- 
fessors are wiser than all the world — are thor- 
oughly pronounced against all this wickedness, 
and by precept and example are on the side of 
purity and obedience to the law of God. All 
this, while the most gifted and influential 
students honor God and walk uprightly. 
Thus there is delivered upon them a new and 
mighty influence for good. The protracted 



,210 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

meeting- comes on and they are happily con- 
verted to God. They leave the institution and 
return home, greatly strengthened for lives of 
virtue and godliness; and, moreover, thor- 
oughly convinced that it is only fools that 
"make a mock at sin." 



DO SINNEKS GET THE BEST OF IT? 211 

XVIII. 

DO SINNERS GET THE BEST OF IT? 

Sinners of every grade and style think that 
most of their happiness comes from sin. On 
the other hand, God says, "The way of trans- 
gressors is hard;" "Woe to the wicked! it 
shall be ill with him." Thus the controversy 
is made up, and the issue is joined. 

God proclaims that the law restrains man 
for his good. It is not the law, God's ordi- 
nance, that does the harm; it is man's evil 
act, or nonaction, his violation of law. The 
law rests on the truthfulness and power of 
God. When the sinner can offer such induce- 
ment to God as to cause him to swerve from 
the truth, or when he can snatch power out of 
God's hands, then he may sin with impunity. 
But the law is fixed. God has the disposition 
and the power to maintain it. If a man sins 
against the law, he does so at his peril. 

i. Physical law is God's law. God has 
established the law of gravity. This is a good 
law; without it, life could not exist, neither 
vegetable nor animal life. Even the planet, 
wanting the power of attraction, in every par- 
ticle of its matter, would go to pieces, and the 
independent particles would move, if they 
moved at all, merely at random. The law of 
gravity is a good, an indispensable law; but if 



212 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

a man should throw himself from some high 
place, he would be broken to pieces, and the 
law that was ordained unto life would cause 
death. The law is good; the violation of the 
law does the mischief. 

2. The law of the State is God's law. God has 
delegated to the State the power to enact and 
execute law. He delegates the power to the 
State, irrespective of the form of government. 
"The powers that be are ordained of God." If 
the State should ordain anything contrary to 
the expressed will of God, it would not be law; 
for the State has only delegated authority. 
Within this limit, the law of the State is the 
law of God, and men are bound to obey it as 
such. It is not merely a question as to whether 
we will obey the State, but it is a question as 
to whether we will obey God. It was Nero's 
government that Paul exhorted the Christians 
to obey. Any government ever instituted is 
better than anarchy. 

Here is the divine statement: "Let every 
soul be subject unto the higher powers. For 
there is no power but of God: the powers that 
be are ordained of God. Whosoever there- 
fore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance 
of God: and they that resist shall receive to 
themselves damnation:" Rom. 13:1-2. God 
has delegated to the State the right to take 
life, and the State may do so by this authority, 
through her officers. Any other man or men 
who, as self-constituted, undertake to mob a 
man, no matter what may be the circum- 



DO SINNERS GET THE BEST OF IT? 213 

stances, are murderers. The man that the 
mob hangs may be guilty, and yet every man 
in that mob is a murderer. Nevertheless, 
many people think it good to violate the law 
of the land, but the jail and the penitentiary 
and the gallows preach the doctrine of Scrip- 
ture, that "the way of transgressors is hard." 

3. God declares that the moral law is good. 
Christ tells us that "the Sabbath was made 
for man;" that is, for his interest and behoof. 
But there are many people in this country who 
think it would be to their interest to destroy 
the Sabbath day. God says we must do no 
work, seek no pleasure, not even speak our 
own words on this day. It is set apart for 
rest and divine service. But men think it is 
to their advantage to have the mail carried, to 
have the post offices open and the mail distrib- 
uted; think Sunday excursions good; invite 
the heavy-laden, burdened man to a Sunday 
excursion for rest, instead of to Christ. But we 
have no hesitancy in declaring that Christ was 
in the right, and all Sabbath desecrators in the 
wrong. 

The thief thinks he can advance his interest 
by stealing; the libertine thinks he can never 
be a happy man until he can throw the reins 
over the neck of lust; the swearer thinks the 
way to be happy is to destroy all reverence for 
God; and the murderer thinks he will be a 
happier man when he can succeed in taking 
the life of the man he hates. But they are all 
wrong, and Christ is right. 



214 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

In all sin, there is about as much foolish- 
ness as sin. This foolishness is so patent, so 
conspicuous, that if we were going- to defend 
the doctrine of the Universalists, we would not 
attempt to do so by the flimsy arguments usu- 
ally resorted to, but would put in the plea of 
insanity; that sin is such folly as to raise the 
presumption of insanity. It is not the law, but 
the violation of the law, that causes all the 
trouble. 

Now, we do not mean to deny, ignore, or 
disguise the fact that obedience is a way of 
self-denial and cross-bearing. If it were not 
so, it would be amazing; it would be contrary 
to all analogy. Self-denial is necessary to suc- 
cess in everything. The man who does not 
restrain his appetite will hardly be healthy. 
The man who does not exercise economy, if a 
poor man, will always be poor; and if he is 
rich, will come to poverty. The man who is 
idle will be no account anywhere, or for any 
purpose. He had better work than not, at the 
same price, for the idle man is not only taking 
on a bad habit, and opening the door for temp- 
tation, but is also wasting his strength. Yet 
there is self-denial in work and in economy. 
Self-denial is a prerequisite of success in every- 
thing else, as well as in religion. 

In early life, we are apt to ask, "Who will 
shew us any good ? Where may happiness be 
found ?" Carlyle tells us that no one has the 
right to raise the question of happiness; the 
right question for us all is the question of duty. 



DO SINNERS GET THE BEST OF IT? 215 

So it is, but this is not often perceived at first. 
Byron's despondent, half-hypocritical declara- 
tion, is never understood until people get some 
experience of the vanity of the world. 

"I ask not bliss ; I ask but rest. 
I would not, if I might, be blest." 

In the beginning", at least, we are all mer- 
chantmen seeking goodly pearls; asking where 
can happiness be found ? If we turn to pleas* 
ure, as we are apt to do, we find it soon getting 
to be an uphill business. The more we seek 
in this direction, the less we find. The more 
we seek, the more we ask, the more distinctly 
pleasure answers, "Not in me." We may turn 
to riches, and yet few of us can succeed in 
gaining riches; and if we do succeed, the more 
we succeed, the more clearly shall we get the 
confession from Mammon, "Not in me." We 
may try to combine all things, but the combi- 
nation, the whole commonwealth of things, 
will answer, with united voice, "Not in us." If 
happiness is to be found anywhere, it is in the 
"one thing needful," in the "pearl of great 
price," in the Christian religion. 

This pearl is of great price or worth and 
must be bought. On the divine side it is a 
gift without money and without price. In na- 
ture God gives sunshine and showers and at- 
mosphere — all else must be bought. In grace 
he gives the law, the atoning sacrifice and 
the Holy Ghost — all else must be bought. We 
must buy the "pearl of great price" by the 



216 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

surrender of all thing's. Christ says, "Whoso- 
ever he be of you that f orsaketh not all that he 
hath, he cannot be my disciple." Peter says, 
speaking- for himself and the other apostles, 
"We have left all." Paul says, "I count all 
things but loss for the excellency of the knowl- 
edge of Christ Jesus my Lord." If we would 
gain this "pearl of great price," we must gather 
up all that we have and lay it down at the feet 
of Christ. 

We must sell our sins. In fact, all that we 
hold in our own indefeasible right is our sins. 
All good things are from God. Our sins we 
hold as our own property. Our sins cleave to 
us and abide with us in sickness and in health, 
in poverty and in wealth, through good report 
and evil report. Death that separates sinners 
from everything else, brings them into eter- 
nal union with their sins. Can this be the rea- 
son that we love them so well, and refuse to 
barter them, even for the "pearl of great 
price." 

It is a good old doctrine that a commodity 
is worth what it will sell for in a fair open 
market. Corn is worth more or less accord- 
ing to supply and demand. And we confess 
that we do not see why sin should be an ex- 
ception to the general rule. Suppose, then, we 
put sins on the market and see for what they 
can be sold. Here is A's drunkenness! It 
makes him feel so rich, so smart, so happy. 
How much can we get for A's habit of drunk- 
enness? The title is good, we warrant it. 



DO SINNERS GET THE BEST OF IT? 217 

How much can we get for A's drunkenness? 
No bidder! Then we will throw in, for good 
measure, his cheatings, his profanity, all his 
other sins. We will throw them all in for 
good measure and put them up to the lowest 
bidder. Do not men consider their sins the 
dearest, sweetest things of their lives? and yet 
we cannot offer inducement to men so that 
they will be willing to take other's sins with all 
their issues and responsibilities. Will not the 
Devil, at whose solicitation they were com- 
mitted, pay a good round price for them? No. 
He knows from experience that there is hell 
in all sin, in proportion to quality and quan- 
tity; and he does not wish any more, nor any 
of worse quality than his own. But those 
bold and daring sinners that by precept and 
example enticed him to sin ; can we not get a 
bid from some of them? No. They love sin, 
love to commit it themselves, and to see others 
commit it. But they would not take the 
penalty there is in sin, the hell that comes of 
it, for any price that could be offered them. 
So that a man cannot sell his sins, even to the 
lowest bidder. If sins cannot be sold; if they 
are worth so much less than nothing that 
we cannot sell them to the lowest bidder, what 
shall we do with them? Throw them away? 
Run away from them? If we could do that it 
would be a happy riddance. But we cannot 
get away from them on any terms. No won- 
der you hear preachers say, "Poor sinner!" 
But now in this strait we learn that there is 



218 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

a buyer in the market. The richest being in 
the universe, even Jesus the Christ, will buy 
you out. He offers the "pearl of great price," 
his religion, for your sins. What does he 
want with them? We give an illustration: 
Here is a rich, refined, elegant nobleman, who 
is most delightfully situated but for one dis- 
agreeable and hurtful environment to his 
premises. A bad man has built a liquor saloon 
on the border of his grounds, where his chil- 
dren and servants are being ruined. He offers 
to buy him out; he will pay a fabulous price 
for the property. What does he want with it? 
To destroy it. And that is what Jesus Christ 
wants with our sins. He wants to cover them 
up; to cast them into the sea of oblivion, so 
that they may no more harm us; so that they 
may no longer be a stench in the nostrils of 
the moral universe. 

Your pleasures are all to be sold to Christ. 
Henceforth all pleasure must be taken in the 
name, and according to the will of Christ. 
You sell it all, that you may buy the "pearl 
of great price." Henceforth God says, "I 
am thy exceeding great reward," "I am thy 
husband." The love of pleasure, any other love, 
breaks the contract and is spiritual adultery; 
is therefore good cause for divorce, and does 
force the parties asunder. God says, "I am 
a jealous God." It is a fearful time when God, 
for cause, gets jealous of his bride; when he 
shall know that though she has pledged her 



DO SINNERS GET THE BEST OE IT? 219 

troth and given her hand to him, she has 
given her heart to another. 

You sell your vocation to Christ. Let us 
take one instance for all. Your store is no 
longer yours; it belongs to Christ. You have 
agreed to exchange it with him for the ' 'pearl 
of great price," for his religion. Henceforth 
you are nothing more than a clerk in that 
store. If we are right, but. one question can 
arise, and that is: "What is the will of Christ, 
the proprietor of the store, for whom I am 
clerking? But you [may say, "I cannot do 
business on such terms." That is for you to 
consider. Christ says, "The kingdom of 
heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking 
goodly pearls: who, when he had found one 
pearl of great price, went and sold all that he 
had, and bought it:" Matt. 13:45-46. He says 
again, "Ye cannot serve God and mammon:" 
Luke 16:13. And in general terms, he says, 
"Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not 
all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple." 

Rather than lower the terms of discipleship; 
he let the rich young man goa way sorrowfully; 
he let a senator wonder and stumble at the 
necessity of the new birth; and he allowed the 
multitude to go away, murmuring, "This is an 
hard saying; who can hear it ?" Suppose he 
should lower the terms to meet my views, then 
he would have to lower them, in some other 
particular, to meet your views, and then he 
would have to lower them all round, so as to 
meet the views of all men, which would be to 



220 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

admit into the kingdom of heaven sinners of 
every hue and form, and would be equiva- 
lent to baptizing- hell; and obliterating all moral 
distinctions everywhere. 

Such are the facts, and the question arises 
right here, would it be good for a man to em- 
brace the Christian religion on such terms as 
thus demanded ? We are sure that he is jus- 
tified, in respect to his own interest. He makes 
a good exchange. Jacob bought Esau's birth- 
right for a mess of pottage. That was sharp 
practice on Jacob's side, and the birthright the 
most profitable portion he had in the land of 
Canaan. Jacob got it at a great bargain. But 
he paid something of value for it. Here, a man 
gives up nothing of any value, for the best of 
all things. We do not forget the store, for 
that belonged to God before. In the contract, 
he only agreed to let Christ have his own. The 
man simply exchanges sin, the only harmful 
thing in the universe, for salvation. There 
never was an exchange in which the advan- 
tages were so clearly on one side. We admit 
that a man may roll sin, as a sweet morsel, 
under his tongue, and yet it will be the wisest 
and happiest exchange he ever made, or ever 
can make, when he surrenders it for the "pearl 
of great price." 

It may be hard at first — mortification, exci- 
sion, even crucifixion. But after awhile, the 
habit of obedience gets easier, and at the last, 
we consider it all joy that we are counted 
worthy to suffer for him who did and suffered 



DO SINNERS GET THE BEST OP IT? 221 

so much for us. That is the best thing" that 
holds good the longest, and that finally issues 
in the best. 

But, as already intimated, the Christian re- 
ligion is not all self-denial and cross-bearing. 
There are compensations in it, that outweigh 
all that can be put in the opposite scale. 

The drunkard, they say, has a happy time 
of it getting drunk; but how about it while he 
is getting sober, and afterwards? Rioters may 
delight in the excitement and thoughtlessness 
of animalism. But if God should continue his 
mercies to them, they will have a morrow, and 
in the reaction of the morrow they may awake 
to the fear that they may have a soul and, if 
so, be alarmed at the question, "What will 
become of it?" The man that has cheated his 
neighbor may revel in the luxury of ill-gotten 
gain, but until he gets to the level of a brutish 
beast, he can take no pleasure in it. So is it 
with all sin. Deception may be for a little 
while, but ever and again the Word and the 
Spirit of God will put a whip in the hands of 
conscience that will scourge him to the very 
brink of despair. And so much the worse for 
him when his conscience becomes seared so 
that he turns to a brute or a devil. One of the 
compensations of the Christian religion is 

A GOOD CONSCIENCE. 

St. Paul declares, "Our rejoicing is this, the 
testimony of our conscience." Reader, did you 
ever enjoy the luxury of a good conscience? 



222 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

Were you ever able to stand up and front the 
universe, and say, "I have a conscience void 
of offense towards God and man?" Such a. 
conscience is worth more than all the intoxica- 
ting beverages; worth more than the delusive 
fascination of all revelry; worth more than all 
the ill-gotten gain that comes from gambling, 
or cheating, or overreaching our neighbor in 
any way. A good conscience! It is a priceless 
commodity. Money cannot buy it; worldly 
pleasure cannot confer it; high station cannot 
insure it; the applause of all men, however 
grateful to the ear, cannot convey the sweet, 
calm delight that comes from a good con- 
science. 

Religion also gives a man 

PEACE. 

Such peace as the world can neither give nor 
take away; "The peace of God which passeth 
all understanding." God is reconciled and the 
law is satisfied. If wicked men and devils are 
against him, so much the worse for them. 
Their rage is impotent. "Who shall lay any- 
thing to the charge of God's elect? It is 
God that justifieth. Who is he that condemn- 
eth." But he has also true pleasure and joy. 
Is there any pleasure to be derived from the 
good things of this life? He has a commission 
from heaven to take them all. He may eat 
and drink, may be clothed, may possess lands 
and live in houses; and he may have more 



DO SINNERS GET THE BEST OF IT? 223 

friends than any one else, since God and all 
the holy angels are his friends. The law of 
God only holds him back from the things that 
are harmful, or from excessive indulgence in 
lawful things; and he gets his will into har- 
mony with the divine will, so that he is able to 
foresee the evil and hide himself, while the 
"simple pass on, and are punished." After 
all, he knows that the world has but little to 
give, and he does not trust it for much and is 
not disappointed. But the simple transgress- 
ors draw such drafts on the world that they 
cannot get them honored; they force the world 
into bankruptcy. But the Christian man has 
God for his banker, and the riches of the 
universe on deposit. So he continues to draw 
joy out of the wells of salvation. God turns 
down on him a stream of joy from the infinite 
fountain of joy: "Enough for each, enough 
for all, enough forevermore." Shall a man 
leave this fountain of pure and infinite joy to 
seek happiness in muddy pools and filthy 
sewers? 

It is like Nebuchadnezzar leaving his palace 
and royal dainties to lie out and browse with 
cattle; it is like that rich young man in the Gos- 
pel, who left his father's house and hired him- 
self to be a swineherd, and desired to feed on 
the husks that the swine did eat. 

Transgressors lose property and friends, 
and die like other people. And when calamity 
comes they have nothing to fall back upon; 
no religion, no hope, no God, no heaven. We 



224 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

have often wondered how wicked people man- 
age to stand it when troubles come. 

We think a very humble Christian, one who 
could say without feigning, "I am less than 
the least of all saints," could also say, "Yet, 
poor as my claim may be to the character of 
a Christian, I would not take the place of the 
sinner for a single day — no! not for one hour — 
and run his risks for all the stars that float in 
the blue depths of infinite space, were each 
world richer than this globe of ours." 

The exchange of sin for salvation is a glo- 
rious exchange. A man will get sick and 
then, if not before, he will lose all relish for 
worldly pleasures, but his religion gets sweeter 
and more beautiful. In the day of health it 
was & luxury; now it becomes a necessity. 
He comes down to the bed of death, and all 
the things that he surrendered for salvation a 
few years ago leave him, but his precious 
pearl abides. As he passes through the valley 
and shadow of death, it turns to a star and 
dissipates the darkness with the light of celes- 
tial hope. When all other things arewrecked 
and go down in the storm, this becomes a buoy 
that floats him to the eternal shore. Let the 
trumpet sound! He that cometh to judge us 
is his covenant God, his friend, his Saviour. 
Let eternity begin! His peerless pearl will 
grow brighter and yet more bright as the 
eternities roll their glories along the rising 
tides of the shoreless seas. 



MAN CREATED AND REDEEMED. 225 

XIX. 

MAN CREATED AND REDEEMED. 

Man by virtue of his creation is a cosmos. 
The universe is literally united and concen- 
trated in him. He is made of dust and has in 
him the elements of the material universe. 
But the dust is organized by the life that is in 
him, hence he is more than any mere material 
system; he is an animal. This raises him 
above the unorganized, the dust-built universe. 
Man is the archetype of all material and of 
all animated nature. As the eagle is king of 
birds and the lion is king of beasts, so 
is he king in nature as well as by divine invest- 
ment over the lower animals. Man is the head 
and front, the beauty and the glory of nature — 
in himself a cosmos. But he is more than 
nature; he is also super-nature. 

Suppose God had ceased from creative Work 
in the middle of the sixth day, before man had 
been created, what then? There would have 
been a book written by the fingers of God, full 
of great thought material, with contents divine, 
yet destined never to have a reader; there 
would have been a grand panorama touched 
and retouched day by day with artistic 
skill divine, but unrolled before no sentient 
being. There may have been leafy bowers, 
murmuring streams, bird choirs, ^Eolian 

15 



226 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

harps and sphere harmony, aglow with beauty 
unrecognized, or rolling a grand diapason of 
music, at best, merely upon the ear of brutish 
beasts. 

There may have been "sermons in stones" 
and good in everything; but the preaching 
would have been all to the wilderness. There 
would have been a grand temple, its flooring 
sublime in the swell and sweep of mountain 
and valley; seamed with rivers; dotted with 
fountains of lake and sea; carpeted with cloth 
woven in the looms of Iris, warp and woof of 
earth fiber, dyed with light; arched and roofed 
with curtains of azure, and lighted with pen- 
dent globes of fire, all ablaze with the divine 
glory; and yet, without an altar, without a 
priest, without a worshiper. 

The fact is, without super-nature, all nature 
would have been without signification. An 
intelligent being, looking on when it was fin- 
ished, would have said such a building de- 
manded an appreciative resident; or "when 
such an estate is created there must be an in- 
herit or in abeyance." Thus did nature proph- 
esy of super-nature — of man. 

And man was created in accordance with the 
prophecy. He was the archetype and repre- 
sentation of nature; but that he may compre- 
hend and interpret nature, he must be above 
nature. Hence, God, who made his angels 
spirits, made man partly of spirit. Thus man 
is a microcosm in a sense which could be 
predicated of no other creature, not even of 



MAN CREATED AND REDEEMED. 2^7 

an angel. He had in himself the elements of 
all creation; more than the material universe, 
more than matter organized by animal or 
vegetable life, more than the angels. He is 
as the material universe, plus his organization, 
plus the spirit out of which the angels were 
created. He is an angel plus his material garb 
plus his animal life and organized body So far 
as we know he is the only being ever formed 
with all nature and super nature united and 
concentrated in himself, with the best parts of 
earth and heaven combined. 

It was worthy of God, after he had finished 
the work of creation, after having made the 
angels to inhabit heaven, and having formed all 
material and animal nature, to have called the 
first ecumenical council ever assembled in the 
sphere of the Godhead, and to have submitted 
the proposition, "Let us make man in our im- 
age, and invest him with the vicegerency of 
the lower world." And so it was. Man was 
an integer, whose unity summed all the frac- 
tions of creation; a circle, whose center was at 
the heart of the universe, but whose periphery 
touched the outer edge of things; a building, 
whose base was in the dust, but whose dome, 
spirit crowned, shot up among the angels. 

That we do not overestimate man is evident, 
not only from his creation, but from many 
other facts of Scripture. The Bible makes 
much of the fact that man has a body, as well 
as a soul. It does this: 



228 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

i ? By the declaration that the bodies of the 
saints are "the members of Christ:" I. Cor. 
6:15; and, hence, because they are members 
of Christ, they should be sanctified and be- 
come the 

2. 'Temple of the Holy Ghost." 
'3. The Bible makes much of the body, 
through the doctrine of the incarnation. "He 
took not on him the nature of angels, but he 
took on him the seed of Abraham:" Heb. 
2: 10; and, "In him dwelleth all the fulness of 
the Godhead bodily:" Col. 2:9. That is, the 
Godhead, or Deity, dwelt in him really, actu- 
ally, and not symbolically, as in tabernacle 
and temple. The word here rendered "bodily" 
evidently has this meaning. The divinity and 
humanity are united, the two personalities so 
closely a.s to form one Christ. The actuality 
of such a union gives intimation of the im- 
measurable dignity of humanity. 

4. The glory of humanity is further indicated 
by the promise of the resurrection. Except in 
the provisions for the pardon of sinners, 
the gospel has no such glorious peculiarity as 
the resurrection, so the burden of preaching 
was Jesus and the resurrection. Whether this 
referred to the resurrection of Christ, or to 
ours, it matters not, for ours is included in his. 
Moreover, the resurrection is the last and 
crowning act of redemption. A glorified body, 
united to a glorified spirit, is the final goal of 
hope; the glorious consummation of all the 
exceeding great and precious promises. This 



MAN CREATED AND REDEEMED. 22S 

state of facts is inexplicable, except upon the 
hypothesis that the condition of man is much 
better when soul and body are reunited, than 
when he was a just spirit in heaven. So then, 
Scripture emphasizes the fact that man as a 
spirit is much higher in the scale of being be- 
cause he has a body. Hence, we conclude man 
was the highest creature ever formed. What, 
therefore, must have been the potentialities of 
such a being ? 

If order be the first law of God, as is gener- 
ally conceded, development must be his second 
law. The skeptical scientist is right, in part, 
in reference to the law of development. The 
crab apple may have developed, by culture, 
into all the sweet apples we now have. But 
the apple could never develop into a peach, 
much less could it ever have become an ani- 
mal or a man. For there has always been a 
higher and stronger law over this and all 
subordinate laws, to wit: God's first law, or- 
der. Development must be along the line of 
nature, not contrary to it. A vegetable must 
develop as a vegetable; an animal, as an ani- 
mal; an angel, as an angel; and a man, as a 
man; each one on his own line, but on no 
other. Now, man being matter and animal 
and angel, might develop on all these lines at 
one and the same time. They could develop 
only in one way — on one line — but man could 
develop this way, that way, every way possible 
to all creation, to all nature and super-nature. 



230 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

'The heavens declare the glory of God; and 
the firmament sheweth his handywork." Man, 
in his material nature, manifests his glory 
above them all; in his animal nature, he is 
above all animal nature. Angelic spirits dis- 
played the divine glory above the material, 
and above the animal; but man displayed it 
above them all, for he was all in one. 

Standing on such a vantage ground, on such 
a mount of glory, with potentialities clearly 
above all creatures, in earth and heaven, what 
might not man have become, had he stood fast 
in his integrity ? But sin stopped him right 
there, with his potentialities all undeveloped. 
After he had sinned, he could not move a sin- 
gle step forward in the grace of creation. He 
is rather turned back, and moves downward 
by the gravity of his own corruption. Sin 
dwarfs his angelic nature, and relegates his 
organization, through decomposition, to its 
original condition of dust. 

But anon, God puts him on another, even a 
higher line of development, through a new 
grant of grace in Jesus Christ. In this new 
grant of grace, he comes back, by repentance 
and faith, to God, who sanctifies and justifies, 
and, finally, glorifies him. 

We do not preach that good works are meri- 
torious. All merit is in Jesus Christ. And yet 
some are to be blamed, and others commended. 
Christ himself says, "Well done, thou good 
and faithful servant!" 



MAN CREATED AND REDEEMED. ' 231 

Virtue is to be commended. And there are 
two reasons, at least, why virtue, recovered and 
maintained by fallen creatures, should be more 
highly commended than virtue maintained by 
unfallen creatures. 

i. It is more difficult to recover than to 
maintain virtue. Adam and Eve could fulfill 
their relative duties, say of husband and wife, 
with little effort. Eve did not cross Adam, and 
Adam did not vex Eve. But now there is fric- 
tion. Man's selfishness causes him to demand 
more than due reverence and obedience, while 
woman's selfishness makes her self-assertive, 
restive, rebellious, sometimes to eschew all au- 
thority. Now, this man if he makes a good, 
loving husband under such circumstances, is 
worthy of more honor than the man, who, in 
all respects, has found meet helpfulness in his 
wife. And the woman who has a drunken, 
cross-grained, worthless husband, if she pre- 
serve her poise, firmly throned in the sphere of 
wifely duty, is a heroine in the fields of moral 
conflict, and is entitled to more than any 
queenly crown. Victoria's crown, as the best 
ruler of the age, is dim beside the one deserved 
by such a woman. 

Moreover, when the tendency of nature is 
all upward, and circumstances are all propi- 
tious, there is little difficulty in moving up- 
ward. But when nature impels us downward, 
and circumstances all push us in the same di- 
rection, it will require more effort to rise. "If 
the iron be blunt, ... then must he put 



232 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

to more strength." And this is the condition 
of fallen man. Hence, "He that ruleth his 
spirit [is better] than he that taketh a city." 
The difficulties to the fallen man, within and 
without, are greater, and hence, his commenda- 
tion for the performance of even the same 
duties must be greater. And so the grandest 
promise of Scripture is appropriately made to 
him that overcometh. The promise is that the 
fallen man who rises and conquers through 
the new grant of grace in Jesus Christ, "shall 
sit down with him in his throne as he has over- 
come and is sat down in the throne of the 
Father." There never could have been such 
high destiny to either Adam or the angels, 
simply because they never had such difficul- 
ties to encounter and overcome. 

2. And there are new duties to be per- 
formed by fallen men that are super-Adamic, 
super-angelic. 

(a) The duty of loving and forgiving ene- 
mies. This Godlike virtue seems little under- 
stood by most people. Many hold that it is a 
dutyt to forgive even without repentance, but 
this is licentious doctrine. We are to forgive 
as God forgives; if we believe he is too good to 
hold man accountable for wrongdoing, we al- 
lign ourselves with the Universalists. And if 
we say we are to be so good as to forgive with- 
out repentance, we do by such assumption 
make ourselves better than God. Our prayer 
is "forgive as we forgive." The reasoning- of 
most people on this question is like the reason- 



MAN CREATED AND REDEEMED. 233 

ing of the Calvinists on the final perseverance 
of the saints. God puts conditions to final 
perseverance, and if there are strong state- 
ments anywhere, these conditions are to be 
implied everywhere. If God says anywhere, 
"If ye do these things ye shall never fall," this 
condition must be implied when he says, "Your 
life is hid with Christ in God; "or, when he says, 
"Neither shall any man pluck them out of my 
hand." Just so in regard to the forgiveness of 
enemies. If God says, "If he repent, forgive," 
that condition is to be implied everywhere. 
We repeat, to teach otherwise is a doctrine of 
licentiousness like that which Universalists 
teach when they hold that God will forgive 
without repentance. We suppose men run into 
this belief from not understanding- the true doc- 
trine of forgiveness. If I forgive a man I am no 
longer to hold his offense against him. I am 
to take him back with good will in all loving- 
heartedness. But if he has damaged me in any 
way he must, as a fruit of repentance, make 
hearty restitution. If he refuses to do this he 
has not repented; for under the intermediary 
dispensation of John the Baptist, we are ex- 
horted to bring forth "fruits meet for repent- 
ance." 

Every man whom I may be able to reach for 
good is my neighbor, and I am to love my 
neighbor as myself. 

An angel never had a personal enemy, such 
as David had in Saul and Shimei, and such as 
every true man has encountered in his day. 



234 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

An angel knows nothing- of the hard duties of 
love and forgiveness of enemies, especially- 
hard from one poor sinner to another. If he 
curses me, in return I am to bless him; if he 
despitefully uses me, I am to pray for him; and 
if he repents, I am to forgive him. Do you 
think this is a virtue easy to exercise ? Who- 
ever tries it, will find need to pray, as did the 
apostles, when it was first announced to them, 
"Lord, increase our faith." The fact is, this 
virtue is too high for angels. God never called 
them to its exercise. They never were sinners 
among sinners, and never had, in full, the new 
grant of grace in Jesus Christ, and hence could 
not exercise this Godlike virtue. 

(b) Patience is a virtue too high for the 
reach of angels. The man who exercises it is 
"perfect and entire, wanting nothing." Where 
there has been no sin, there could be no trouble, 
no affliction, no offenses; there could be no 
need, indeed, no possibility of the exercise of 
this virtue, for "tribulation worketh patience." 
Patience is a word not found in the native lan- 
guage of heaven. It is a provincialism im- 
ported from our planet, dug out of the soil of 
sin, smelted in the furnace of affliction, coined 
in the mint of grace, and brought into circula- 
tion by redeemed colonists, who have crossed 
over Jordan, and entered the metropolitan 
city of the heavenly Canaan, the New Jerusa- 
lem. 

The elder asked St. John, in the apocalypse, 
"What are these which are arrayed in white 



MAN CREATED AND REDEEMED. 235 

robes ? and whence came they ?" St. John 
answered, "Sir, thou knowest." And the an- 
gel said, "These are they which came out of 
great tribulation, and have washed their 
robes, and made them white in the blood 
of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the 
throne of God, . . . and he that sitteth 
on the throne shall dwell among them." 
They have been in hotter fires than angelic 
integrity was ever submitted to, and coming 
out purified, the whiteness of their robes is 
conspicuous, even among the white-robed an- 
gels. They dwell on the highest hills of im- 
mortality, right "before the throne," God him- 
self dwelling "among them." 

(c) Charity, in the sense of almsgiving, is 
also a super-Adamic, a super-angelic virtue. 
Let us look at this virtue merely on the side 
of privilege. If we read the 8th and gth of II. 
Corinthians, in which St. Paul discusses this 
subject, and closes it with an outburst of thanks 
to God for his "unspeakable gift," we must be 
impressed with the privilege. Oh, yes! it is 
such a privilege as an angel might covet, but 
could never attain. An angel might stand, or 
hover with outstretched wings, before the 
throne, in token of his readiness to go on er- 
rands of service or mercy to any part of the 
divine dominions. But when on such errands, 
his place about the throne would be vacant. 
But you may be to-day worshiping in the sanc- 
tuary, while the money you gave last year is 
feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and 



236 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

preaching the gospel in your own country, 
and in many parts of far-off heathendom. D o 
you wonder that St. Paul thanked God for 
such a gift ? — that he calls it an "unspeakable 
gift"? 

In the final judgment devils and angels are 
to be present. It is easy to understand why 
the devils are to be there. It is their judg- 
ment day as well as ours. All the hail and 
thunder and storm that their sins have ac- 
cumulated in the magazine of divine wrath 
shall then be let loose to sweep them into the 
abyss. But why are the unfallen angels there? 
Why stands the eternal throne in solitary 
grandeur? Why are the harps and voices all 
hushed, and heaven without a worshiper? 
Why have the angels all descended to the 
earth with the great white throne? Surely it 
is not a mere spectacular parade, grand and 
imposing, but unmeaning. Oh, no! It is to 
behold the throne of inviolable justice and 
holiness vindicated; vindicated in the con- 
demnation of the wicked; vindicated in the 
salvation of the righteous. To behold the 
glory of the divine administration culminate 
in the glory of the redeemed. Take one 
glorified saint as a sample. He was a fallen 
man of a fallen race. A race created with en- 
dowments and potentialities the highest, but 
forfeited by the sin of its federal head and 
by man's personal sins. All forfeited! — but 
recovered in Jesus Christ. Now Christ takes 
the grace of recovered manhood and crowns 



MAN CREATED AND REDEEMED. 237 

him a man. Then, turning to the angels, we 
think he will say: 

"Here is a man once a poor sinner, in 
the weakness and blindness and enmities 
incident to such a state, yet he so purged 
himself with blood, that in the might of 
redeeming grace he exercised the super- 
Adamic, the super-angelic virtue of forgive- 
ness to his personal enemies. Put that jewel 
in his crown. 

"Moreover, in the midst of trial and tribula- 
tion, such as could only befall a sinner, he ex- 
ercised the new and unheard of virtue of 
patience. Put that jewel also in his crown. 

"But he also, as a poor laborer, worked until 
the sweat beaded his brow, toiling that he 
might have somewhat to relieve the suffering 
of his poor fellow-sinners. He not only 
labored to this end himself, but his heart was 
so full of love that he was impelled to go 
about begging others to help him relieve these 
suffering ones, even as Titus did at Corinth, 
and as Paul did all around his circuit. This 
is one of the almsgivers, yea, one of the alms 
beggars, not for himself, but for others. Put 
that jewel also in his crown. 

"And now coronate him. Put that crown on 
his head. And put a palm of victory in his 
hand that he may wave it forever in token of 
eternal victory. Victory over trials and diffi- 
culties such as are recorded in no other history. 
And now give him a harp and let him begin 
to sing the new song A song whose lowest 



238 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

notes, that tell merely of creative grace, shall 
swell above the song - of archangels; but whose 
highest notes, that tell of redeeming grace, shall 
burden the far-off infinitudes with utterances 
of ineffable glories." 

And now there can be no doubt that he is 
a man redeemed and glorified. You may 
recognize him by his nearness and by his like- 
ness to Jesus, every lineament of that super- 
nal beauty coming out in bold relief. You 
may know him by those whitest of all white 
robes, because washed and made white in the 
blood of the Lamb. You may distinguish 
him by that crown of righteousness, the most 
resplendent of all creaturely crowns. But if he 
should be above angelic vision they might 
recognize him by the richer, sweeter, deeper- 
toned melody of the new song of redemption. 
Our sun is the fountain of light and life to our 
planet. But if Sirius or Aldebaran should de- 
scend and envelop our sun in thousandfold 
splendor, such instance might illustrate the 
coming of the Son of God, who is the Sun of 
Righteousness, and envelops the grace of 
creation in the wonders of redemption. 



APPENDIX. 



APPENDIX. 

GOD AND THE SOUL. 

The Bible assumes that there is a God, and 
that man has a soul. It does not undertake 
to prove either of these assumptions. It con- 
siders the rival claims of those that are called 
Gods, and offers proof that the God of Scrip- 
ture, by whatever name he may choose, is the 
only ''living; and true God." But if a man 
says, 'There is no God," it leaves him in his 
folly and turns to more hopeful cases. The 
two denials of God and the soul are twin 
errors that cannot be separated, and hence, we 
couple them in the discussion. 

Comte and his school, the positivists, hold 
that humanity is the only object that can 
claim the rational worship of scientific men. 
But they are met at the threshold with a fact, 
fatal to their theory, and patent to every one 
who knows humanity and has read history, 
to wit: that humanity is, and has been a 
power more for evil than for good. Hence, 
they tell us that it is the improved, transfig- 
ured humanity of the future that must be ex- 
alted to the throne of Godhood. But hu- 
manity may have no future, and if it abide, it 
may be, as heretofore, an evil humanity. It is 
a mischievous religion, and wanting in ration- 
ality, that would worship an evil God in the 

16 



242 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

hope of his improvement. Such worship ma> 
be well named agnosticism. They hold still 
further, according; to Professor Harrison, that 
the soul is the "consensus of the faculties 
which observation discovers in the human or- 
ganism." 1 Or, in other words, the soul is the 
product of organization. Suppose, then, a 
man should die of suffocation. In which case 
the organization may be intact, and yet the 
power that moved the body and produced 
thought is gone. Again, men have been 
drowned, and it may be proved by examina- 
tion, and by the fact that many have been re- 
suscitated, that the organism was not injured 
at all. Both of which instances amount to 
positive proof that the soul is the life or the 
product of life and not of organization. And 
this is just what the Bible has taught from the 
beginning: God "breathed into his nostrils 
the breath of life [lives]; and man became a 
living soul." 2 So we see that Moses, 3,500 
years ago, knew better as to the origin of the 
soul than the so-called "positivists" of to-day. 
The facts above adduced show, also, that 
the life preserves the organization. Indeed, 
we are warranted by facts, in holding that the 
life builds the organization. Take two proto- 
plasms, or rather bioplasms, and submit them 
to the examination of the chemist; he can de- 
tect no difference; they are composed of the 
same elements of matter in the same propor- 
tions. Now heat them so as to destroy the 

1 "Questions of Belief," $. 28. 

2 Gen. 2:6. 



APPENDIX. 248 

germs of life; and afterwards they will not 
grow into organisms, but turn to dust. But 
under proper conditions one of these bio- 
plasms will grow to be a man, and the other 
become an inferior animal, or even a vegeta- 
ble. And under no conditions can this result 
be reversed. This is positive proof not only 
that the life builds the organism, but that it 
also determines its quality. Therefore, it con- 
tradicts the facts to say that life is the product 
of organization. There is life in the bioplasm 
before there is organization — antecedent life 
in order to organization. 

Moreover, if life can exist, in its feeble be- 
ginnings, until it can build for itself a house, 
why may it not exist hereafter, until it can 
build again ? Professor Harrison says the idea 
of future existence without the body is "pure 
nonsense." 1 But after perpetrating such con- 
tradiction of the facts, in holding that the or- 
ganism produces the soul, we have not much 
confidence in his opinion of what may or may 
not be in higher regions. The fact is, Professor 
Harrison, in order to get rid of the soul, in the 
ordinary sense of the word, resorts to a sleight 
of hand process utterly unworthy of a professed 
teacher of men. He creates an absurd antag- 
onist, and then proceeds to demolish him, as if 
he were a real man. He says, "We" [the 
positivists] look on man as man, not on man 
plus a heterogeneous entity." 2 Again he says 
"And [there are] those who are persuaded that 

1 "Questions of Belief," p. 28. 

2 Ibid, p. 12. 



244 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

man has, over and above his man's nature, an 
immaterial entity." 1 

The intelligent reader need not be informed 
that no one ever held such doctrine. There 
are, however, those who hold that man is more 
than earth and gases; that he is more than a 
mere animal; that he has the power to make 
and use tools; to cook food; to form concepts; 
to compare two things with each other, and 
these with a third; or to reason, and to tell all 
these with their processes, in spoken language. 
These things that no clod can do; that no mere 
animal can do; these things that differentiate 
him from all other creatures within the bounds 
of our observation, are what constitute him a 
man, and the power that enables him to do all 
these things, is what we call the soul. Now, 
if Professor Harrison can show that man is 
not thus peculiarly endowed, he may prove 
that man has no soul, in the customary sense 
of the word, and he will be enabled to use this 
proof against the Christian religion; otherwise, 
Christian people appealing to such phenomena 
for the existence of the soul, will laugh at his 
fancied man, though he recreate and demolish 
him a thousand times. 

Design, in nature, has been held as proof of 
a designer. Wise design can only be predi- 
cated of a person. To predicate wisdom of a 
post, or of a stone, or of the elements of mat- 
ter would be a solecism. The man who would 
so assume would stultify himself. If there be 

1 " Questions of Belief," p. 19. 



APPENDIX. 245 

wise design in nature, there must be an intel- 
ligent, personal maker. Janet, in few words, 
seems to establish the fact of such wise design. 
He says: "Consider what is implied in the 
egg of a bird. In the mystery and night of 
incubation, there comes, by the combination 
of an incredible number of causes, a living 
machine within the egg. It is absolutely sep- 
arated from the external world, but every part 
is related to some future use. The outward 
physical world which the creature is to inhab- 
it is wholly divided by impenetrable veils from 
this internal laboratory; but a pre-established 
harmony exists between them. Without, there 
is light; within, an optical machine adapted to 
it. Without, there is sound; within, an acous- 
tic apparatus. Without, there are vegetables 
and animals; within, organs for their reception 
and assimilation. Without, is air; within, lungs 
with which to breathe it; without, is oxygen; 
within, blood to be oxygenized. Without, is 
earth; within, feet are being made to walk on 
it. Without, is atmosphere; within, are wings 
with which to fly through it. Now, imagine a 
blind, idiotic workman, alone in a cellar, who 
simply by moving his limbs to and fro should 
be found to have forged a key capable of 
opening the most complex lock. If we ex- 
clude design, this is what nature is supposed 
to be doing." 1 

If there is no such design in nature, then 
what? Chance? No. On all sides it is eon- 



1 Quoted by Dr. Martineau. 



246 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

fessed that there is no such thing; as chance. 
All is according to law. But law must come 
of intelligence or by chance. But since we 
exclude chance, law must come from intelli- 
gence. Moreover, if law acts, it must have 
an executor; for law is not of itself an actor. 
Left to itself, it must forever remain a dead 
letter on the statute book. If it acts wisely it 
must be by the direction of a person; for, as 
already stated, we can predicate wisdom only 
of a person. So we get a personal God out 
of nature; even his eternal power and God- 
head. But by law, in this connection, is meant 
no more than that the processes of nature are 
orderly and uniform. But how came the 
processes of nature to be orderly and uniform? 
By chance? Or, by intelligent design? So 
that anyway we turn, we get back to the same 
questions, and can get to them but the one 
answer. 

But does not the doctrine of evolution con- 
tradict the doctrine of creation? It does not, 
in the hands of Charles Darwin. He says: 
"Let this process [evolution] go on for mil- 
lions of years, and during each year, on 
millions of many kinds; and may we not be- 
lieve that a living optical instrument might 
thus be formed as superior to one of glass, 
as the works of the Creator are to those of 
man/' 1 And in the last sentence of this trea- 
tise, he says, "There is grandeur in this view 
of life, with its several powers, having been 

1 "Origin of Species," 1881, p. 2. 



APPENDIX. 247 

breathed by the Creator into a few forms or 
into one." Mr. Darwin, then, is not an atheist. 
And though his views have been so repre- 
sented by some of his followers as to teach 
atheism, yet he evidently teaches better doc- 
trine. 

It has been denied that there is wise design 
in nature, yet we believe it has never been 
denied that men have eyes. And eyes seem 
to be designed for seeing; at all events they 
have such faculty. If not created for such 
purpose, how did they come? Mr. Darwin 
says: "We may start from an optic nerve 
simply coated with pigment." Mr. Darwin 
says, "We may." The question is not how 
"may" eyes be made, but how were they 
made? He leaves the language of science 
here and ventures into the regions of conjec- 
ture. If the pigment — paint — should destroy 
the skin and eat into the flesh and, if the skin 
should be cut and slit so as to form an eyelid 
for protection, unless the body was then made 
of different substance from what now com- 
poses it you would get by such process no 
sense organ. How would you get the eye, 
which is both a microscope and a telescope? 
Mr. Darwin feels himself so pressed at this 
point that he will not be surprised if we reject 
his method of getting eyes. He says: "To 
suppose that the eye with all its inimitable 
contrivances for adjusting the focus to differ- 
ent distances, for admitting different amounts 
of light, and for the correction of spherical 
and chromatic observation, could have been 



248 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

formed by natural selection seems, I freely 
confess, absurd in the highest degree." 1 But 
the seeming absurdity would be greatly in- 
creased, for if nature is uniform, the other 
sense organs— ear, nose and mouth — must 
also have been formed from coatings of pig- 
ment. 

We admit the power of faith to remove 
mountains, but as it takes so much less to be- 
lieve that sense organs had a creator, we beg 
to be excused from accepting this wondrous 
theory of the evolutionist. 

The atheist says God could not have made 
the world, because there are useless, even 
harmful things in nature. Now we believe 
there is no difference of opinion, in these days, 
as to the fact that the moral world is in a state 
of disorder. Thomas Paine may have believed 
that there was no disorder in drunkenness, 
since he himself was a drunkard. Shelley, 
Rousseau and Voltaire, may have persuaded 
themselves, as they did, that there was no dis- 
order in lying and adultery; since they prac- 
ticed, without a blush, these vices openly and 
before the whole world. But atheists of these 
days have been so far converted that they can 
hardly face public opinion on the lawfulness 
of such vices. Look, then, at the lying, cheat- 
ing, fornication, drunkenness, fightings, mur- 
ders, etc., so that no one doubts that the moral 
world is in a state of disorder. Whether this 
disorder came from eating forbidden fruit or 
in some other way, there is the fact that no 

1 "Origin of Species," p. 143. 



APPENDIX. 249 

sane man can question. Suppose, then, the 
physical world without disorder; a perfect 
outer world for the habitation of so morally 
imperfect a creature as man! What then? 
No serpents to bite, no insects to harass, no 
sickness, no afflictions, no death; nothing to 
trouble wrong-doers. Then the inference 
would have been either that there was no God 
or that he had no regard for the moral char- 
acter of his creatures, and that men were not 
accountable for wrongdoing. Such a state 
of affairs is as unaccountable upon the hy- 
pothesis that there is a God of righteousness, as 
that he should prepare a heaven for the habi- 
tation of the "Devil and his angels." If, there- 
fore, God had made a better world, it would 
not have been a fit residence for man. 

Moreover, in the nature of the case, there 
must be more or less imperfection in all 
things, even in creation. God could not have 
created anything equal to himself. Since no 
part of creation could have been equal to God, 
it was less; being less than God it was below 
absolute perfection — that is, it was more or 
less imperfect. It is likely that he would 
give us various degrees of perfection in crea- 
tion, in order to variety, as well as afford mar- 
gin for improvement, that by nature herself 
we might be exhorted to advance in wisdom 
and goodness, whereunto we are called in the 
Gospel. We have said God could have made 
no part of creation equal to himself. Indeed^ 
that would have been to make another God, or 
other Gods. And as, according to St. Paul, 



250 DOCTRINES FOR THE TIMES. 

it is "impossible for him to lie," so was it im- 
possible to make an absolutely perfect world. 
Mr. Gregg seizes upon the conceded fact that 
"God cannot combine inherent contradic- 
tions," 1 to prove that he is "not omnipotent." 
This astonishing feat of legerdemain, which 
we suppose Mr. Gregg imposed on himself for 
logic, may be exposed in few words. God 
may fairly be said to be omnipotent, if he can 
do whatever he wills. It has never been re- 
garded as an indication of power that the 
legal man in Romans, 7th chapter, did what 
he would not; or that a "double-minded man" 
should be "unstable in all his ways;" or that 
Satan should be "a liar and the father of liars," 
and yet sometimes tell the truth. Devils and 
men can "combine inherent contradictions." 
But we venture to say that no one hitherto has 
considered this an element of omnipotence. 
"Inconsistencies" are indices of weakness, and 
not of power, So clearly so that Mr. Gregg's 
position, without violence, may be reduced to 
this absurdity, to wit: that God is not omnipo- 
tent because he is not impotent. Now, we 
beg to involve the atheist in the following 
dilemma. One of these propositions must of 
necessity be true; to wit: 

1. There is one only true God; or, 

2. There are more Gods than one; or, 

3. There is no God. 

The greatest difficulty is to conceive of God 
as self-existent and eternal. 



1 "Enigmas of Life," p. 18. 



APPENDIX. 251 

Let us conceive, as in the second proposition^ 
that there are more Gods than one. Take the 
proposition at the lowest. Suppose there are 
two Gods. Then we have two self-existent 
and eternal beings. This, of course, multiplies 
the difficulty by two; and increases the dif- 
ficulty more than it is increased by such 
multiplication, because we cannot conceive 
that two would be best for us, and they might 
conflict, and put us in confusion. To believe 
in two or more Gods would be superstitious, 
because faith outstretches the evidence. 

But let us suppose, according to the third 
proposition, that there is no God. Then every- 
thing must be self-existent and eternal; or else 
there must have been a time when nothing, on 
it$ own motion, resolved itself into something. 

Anciently, it was supposed that there were 
four elements — earth, air, fire and water; now 
it is known that there are nearly seventy, and 
the likelihood is that some, if not all, of these 
are compound substances. At any rate, we 
have nearly seventy elementary substances, 
and if there be no creator, nearly seventy self- 
existent, eternal substances. And these are 
multiplied almost infinitely in the atom-built 
universe. So that by this hypothesis the diffi- 
culty is practically multiplied by infinity. It is, 
therefore, mere superstition to believe in no 
God, or in more Gods than one. And we con- 
clude that none but "the fool hath said in his 
heart, there is no God." 



Doctrines for the Times 



BY 



REV. W. A. M'cCARTY, D. D.. 

OF THE 

Alabama Conference, 

ASSISTED BY 

REV. T. R. M'cCARTY, A. M., 

OF THE 

North Georgia Conference. 



Every chapter in the book has a new thought, or a new 

method of presenting, or demonstrating truth 

hitherto accepted. 



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and side stamp. Makes a beautiful gift book. 



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